Any guesses how many hours of film it took to create Avengers: End Game and Avengers: Infinity Wars?

900 hours of footage to create these two legendary films. An incredible amount of time to be able to create just a few hours of cinematic greatness we get to witness on the movie screen.

What we see on the movie screen is a culmination of the scenes that depict the perfect balance of a great plot combined with the right emotion and intensity. Less than 1% of the total footage for an incredibly entertaining experience.

In our day-to-day life, this idea of cutting footage to get the perfect image and plot seems to find a way to sneak in as well. Think about social media. There is a wide variety of posts but think more regarding the posts that seem a little too “perfect”.

The perfect family picture.

The perfect vacation.

The perfect job.

The perfect house.

There are certainly many perfect moments we can become lucky to come across and should celebrate, but this idea of capturing one moment as representation of the entire situation is a false narrative. It’s an April Fools joke all year long.

I’ve been through enough family picture sessions with little kids or vacations with travel disruptions to know that capturing one moment of perfection is not representation of reality. When we start comparing our situation to the highlight reel that represents a small percentage of “footage”, we ignore reality. We benchmark ourselves against only the “footage” that makes for a great story.

In reality, the complete story can be a lot of great moments but will always come with difficult moments as well. It’s important for us to have perspective when our mind shifts to comparison mode as opposed to the April Fools jokes social media can play on us. Celebrate the wins, but also understand there’s more to the story than just the footage that makes it to your screen.

Take your step: this week work on moments where your mind drifts to comparison. Ask yourself, is my situation that I’m comparing to someone else’s highlight reel? Am I falling into a trap comparing to only the good footage extracted from the truth – not the entire truth? Acknowledge it is human nature for the mind to compare but take the time to zoom out to get perspective on highlight reel vs. reality.