In this age of social media, scrolling through your feed is part of almost everyone's daily routine. Most of us grab our phones, not even fully awake yet, and are already checking our feeds. For some people it is not just a routine; it is muscle memory. And with enough upward swipes, we find ourselves trapped in an algorithm that shows us nothing but the milestones of others. An award, new equipment, or anything else you do not currently have. Then after enough scrolling, we quietly begin to ask ourselves:
"Why am I not there yet?"
It is a simple question, but it creates a domino effect that begins to shift our perspective. We start downplaying our own accomplishments and measuring the gaps between ourselves and others. Suddenly it becomes more difficult to appreciate our own progress because someone else's seems greater.
Social media has a way of making us forget about the sleepless nights, failed attempts, financial struggles, and years spent figuring things out. Sometimes we blame doom-scrolling as the problem when we compare our ordinary Thursday to someone else's highlight reel. The real trap, though, is not the scrolling itself but the comparison it leads us into. And comparison quietly changes our relationship with success. We stop building it on our own terms and start chasing someone else's version of it. The destination stays the same, but the reason for pursuing it slowly shifts.
In The Veterinary Business Game Theory, Dr. Geoff Carullo discusses the struggles and dangers of comparing yourself to others on social media, particularly in the veterinary field. He identifies it as one of the silent triggers for veterinarians, planting the idea that everyone else is moving faster. Without realizing it, veterinarians stop celebrating their own progress and begin measuring success through someone else's timeline. This mindset causes them to ask, "Am I keeping up?" and mistake that anxiety for motivation.
Dr. Carullo argues that social media is not reality. A person should never compare their unfiltered reality to someone else's polished narrative. The damage of comparison rarely arrives all at once. Instead, it settles quietly into everyday thoughts. You begin questioning whether you are making the right decisions, wondering if you are learning fast enough, or feeling discouraged because your progress looks different from someone else's. Over time, those small doubts grow heavier. What starts as a passing thought becomes imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and the urge to rush a success that has not had enough time to take root.
This experience is not unique to any one country, but it is especially present in the Philippine veterinary field, where social media keeps everyone closely connected and visible to each other. One clinic expands while another celebrates a new milestone. These achievements deserve recognition, but they can also create the illusion that success follows the same timeline for everyone. In reality, every veterinarian works under different circumstances, opportunities, and challenges that social media rarely reveals.
Rather than encouraging veterinarians to step away from social media entirely, Dr. Carullo challenges them to change the way they use it. He reminds readers that the most successful veterinarians are not the ones who ignore social media but the ones who use it with intention. Instead of treating it as a measuring stick for personal worth, he believes veterinarians should treat it as a tool. A tool for building their brand, educating clients, strengthening trust, and inspiring the next generation of vets. But at the end of the day, real progress is not found in what you post. It lives in the patients you saved, the clients who trusted you, and the systems you built along the way.
This is the reminder at the heart of The Veterinary Business Game Theory. Behind every post and every achievement is an incomplete story that was never shared online. Years of endurance, difficult decisions, failures, and sacrifices that shaped someone into who they are now. We rarely see those chapters because social media was never designed to show the full journey. It only shows the highlights.
Success, after all, is not measured by how quickly we catch up with everyone else. It is measured by how consistently we keep moving forward at our own pace. Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is set down the comparison, appreciate how far we have already come, and remember to look beyond the highlight reel.
By Jamela Manzano