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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is to look for the garbage cans. Often

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Speaker 1: the images we see of other people's lives have had

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Speaker 1: parts strategically left out. When you pay attention, you can

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Speaker 1: see that which can keep you from comparing your real

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Speaker 1: life to an unattainable fantasy. If you read my blog

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Speaker 1: Laura Vanderkam dot com, you saw that my family recently

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Speaker 1: put our house on the market. Real estate photos are

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Speaker 1: quite the genre. I am fascinated by the fact that

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Speaker 1: photographers invariably remove the trash cans before snapping pictures. If

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Speaker 1: you haven't noticed this before, pull up your favorite real

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Speaker 1: estate site and you will see what I mean. You

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Speaker 1: will see home offices and bathrooms and kitchens and laundry

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Speaker 1: rooms with no garbage cans anywhere. Apparently, in our dream

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Speaker 1: home fantasies, we never need to throw away banana peels

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Speaker 1: or dental floss or used dryer sheets. When photos were

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Speaker 1: taken of our house before we listed it, we even

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Speaker 1: took the shampoo out of the shower and the dish

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Speaker 1: soap away from the kitchen. Sink. I'm not quite sure

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Speaker 1: how a house and its inhabitants are supposed to stay

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Speaker 1: clean without dish, soap, shampoo, or trash cans, but that

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Speaker 1: is the fantasy. Real estate sites aren't the only places

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Speaker 1: where the staged image can be different from the reality.

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Speaker 1: Social media of photos and posts, holiday letters, class notes

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Speaker 1: in your alumni newsletter. All of these our contexts where

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Speaker 1: people routinely construct an image of their lives, where the

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Speaker 1: real and metaphorical garbage cans have been put somewhere else.

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Speaker 1: And of course there's nothing wrong with this. Who wouldn't

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Speaker 1: crop the a mound of dirty laundry out of that

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Speaker 1: photo of your dog before posting it on Instagram? You

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Speaker 1: really don't need to report in the class notes that

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Speaker 1: you and your spouse are arguing daily about how to

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Speaker 1: parent your team. The problem comes when we compare someone

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Speaker 1: else's edited image with our own messy reality. Of course,

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Speaker 1: we feel like our lives just can't compare with the

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Speaker 1: fantasy of someone else's life in all its waste basketless glory.

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Speaker 1: But instead of getting discouraged, remind your self to look

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Speaker 1: for the garbage cans if you are looking at a

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Speaker 1: picture of someone's home office and there doesn't appear to

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Speaker 1: be anywhere that you could throw away a piece of paper,

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Speaker 1: then you can recognize that this is probably not the

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Speaker 1: normal state of affairs. Everyone needs to throw things away,

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Speaker 1: even people who live in houses that look like they

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Speaker 1: belong on Pinterest. Indeed, in the throws of dinner or

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Speaker 1: a big project, their kitchen or home office probably looks

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Speaker 1: a lot like yours. If you don't see the garbage can,

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Speaker 1: you can rest assured that it is just hidden out

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Speaker 1: of your view. You aren't being shown the full picture.

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Speaker 1: Everybody has a little disorder in their lives, even if

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Speaker 1: we crop it out when we can, so don't compare

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Speaker 1: your life to that fiction. He will just wind up

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Speaker 1: unhappy or maybe hiding your own trash can. And then

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Speaker 1: where are you going to throw away your dirty tissues?

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

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Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

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Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at before Breakfast pod

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Speaker 1: that's B the number four then Breakfast p o D.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart media dot com that Before Breakfast is

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Speaker 1: spelled out with all the letters, thanks so much, should

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Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is

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Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H