The power of social media.

When I first started blogging it was so great. It seemed that everyone was doing it for themselves and not for the audience that happened upon their blog. I use to babble here and there and the pictures I posted were such poor quality that I laugh about how bad it was. Actually it is embarrassing, don't look at them. I mean it! ;)

I wasn't here to impress anyone but share my everyday life. I wanted to share my real thoughts. My real opinions. My mediocre-ness (not a real word? then I apologize). It was easy because no one was reading and I was literally blogging for myself.

In fact, I didn't even tell my sisters that I was blogging and then somehow my sister Emma found out (I still don't know how!) and I remember thinking, "Man, now I can't say anything I want". But what happened was that my sister actually told me that she learned a lot about me from reading my blog. Things she had never known. And when she told me that I stayed true to what I blogged about because even if we had a difference of opinion, it was still my opinion. I love nothing more than a debate but am usually the first person to admit that I'm wrong, when I'm wrong. But luckily, I still had no one to impress. And then when I picked up readers (loyal readers at that) along the way it made it a lot more fun because soon I was able to peek into other people's lives. I was able to read their thoughts, get their opinions and become friends with people I never would have met had it not been for blogging.

And then the term "blog famous" came about and it was like, "Woah!" I've been blogging for this many years and I'm not blog famous and you've been blogging for less than 6 months and you're famous!" Then I began to ask myself, do I want to be blog famous? And it's a struggle to decide whether you should make your blog one that makes you money or just sit in your corner and continue to babble about things the masses don't really care about. And then when the bloggers you love decide that they will like to make money off of their blogs, you begin to question their intentions. You begin to wonder, wait, is this person blogging to become "famous", to become "rich"? Do they really like what they're trying to sell me or are they just telling me they like it because they're being paid to say so. This blogging thing that we never questioned the integrity of an individual became far too easy to question.

And the "real" bloggers. The ones that actually had something worthwhile to share and nothing to sell began to stop blogging because their imperfect lives was not interesting enough. It was nothing to aspire to. Um, do you see those clothes in the background? She couldn't even be bothered to pick them up before taking the pictures, just awful! Why should I read a blog about a person who shops at Walmart if I could read the blog of someone who shops at Chanel. What do I want to aspire to?

I think we all know the answer. Shopping at Walmart is not inspiring but shopping at Chanel is. But the true secret, one that many fail to see, is that money will never buy style. Growing up, my dad would give us each $100 for school shopping and you best believe that we looked fly. When you know how to put an outfit together, you know how to put an outfit together. No amount of money can change that.

I've given myself an assignment because I've become aware that social media has made me look for perfection. If I look at a picture and I see that someone's hair is out of place, instead of automatically thinking, I can't believe she would post a picture of her hair looking like that, I'm going to stop myself and think. Does this happen in real life? Does wind sometimes blow hair? Does bad hair days happen? And if the answer is yes, I will look at the picture and appreciate the person who posted the picture, thank you for sharing a picture that is not posed and perfect. You'll be surprised how often you'll catch yourself wanting perfection too. I'm a culprit too but it's because we've been brainwashed to believe that "perfection" is attainable.

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely impressed with people that have made their blogs their full-time job. And there are many things that I never would have known about had I not learned about it from a blog. Blogging has changed many people's lives. Many have found something that they love and now are making money off of it. That's amazing! Anyone who can make money doing what they love deserves a pat on their back because it is becoming harder and harder to do. A lot of it stemming from money. If what you love to do, won't support your living needs, it makes it much easier to turn your back on what you love.

It took me looking at who I am and really remembering why I started blogging in the first place. Because blogging began to lose its appeal as it became harder to feel that I had anything to say, anything to share that others did not already know. I began to look at my first posts and there it was. My answer. I started blogging because I wanted to document my new life with my husband. I wanted to be able to go back years from now and read my thoughts and see how I had changed over the years. I was excited for my new journey with Sean. I didn't want to read posts about what I was selling other people to buy. Those were not my intentions. And I am aware that intentions change but for me it had not. It was why I struggled with abandoning my blog altogether. But I realized that for me, even if blogging was no longer the thing or if I lost every single reader, I would still continue to blog.

The thing was that I didn't fault others who had found their dream jobs as long as they also stayed true to themselves. It is so easy to see the word sell-out when people are describing bloggers. Yes, I understand it is difficult to see that your favorite blogger who use to talk solely about organization of her home is now telling you how to put on outfits. We didn't even know you liked fashion! I'm aware that I'm a blogger, many of you are bloggers and you're surely not sell-outs. To put me in that box with other bloggers who decided to do themselves kinda irks me. But I digress...

And then Instagram came along. Awesome, fun Instagram! But do you remember when we first started? All the awful borders and all those crazy filters?! Well that was what was fun about Instagram. Everything looked so out of whack. Nothing was perfect. We did our best to make great pictures look absolutely awful. And I loved it. But then too quickly bloggers began blogging about how to Instagram. Do this to make your picture perfect. Do this to appeal to the masses because if not why would anyone want to follow your Instagram. Forget that you have a great personality, no one can see that in your pictures! And then soon after Instagram became this place that you could make money, so goodbye went those borders and capuche went the filters. Instead of taking pictures with our phones which was the whole purpose of Instagram in the first place, we began to upload DSLR pictures into our feeds. Now don't get me wrong, I've done this a few times but soon it became the only way pictures were uploaded. Instagram soon became like blogging, there was no escaping it. You now could no longer post an imperfect picture, anywhere.

We've become so consumed with sharing this beautiful part of our lives (which many times IS true) but when your pictures look like you're living in a magazine what does that translate? How can anyone relate to you? I don't need you to share every horrible thing that has happened in your life because really it doesn't feel good when all you know is the bad in someone's life. That makes you feel pretty awful and truthfully no one has time to feel bad all the time. But what about sprinkling a little reality here and there. How about sharing that life is great but sometimes, just sometimes, it could also be shitty. Show us that yesterday I did get knocked down a few pegs but today I'm smiling and enjoying the life I've been blessed with.

It has become so much easier for us to compare our lives with others because of social media. Unfortunately, not everyone is wise enough to realize that life isn't always like that. Adults and teenagers alike. When you catch yourself saying, why can't I have that life, why can't I be like that, why can't I look like that, you've already fallen for the trap. And it isn't even that person's fault, it is yours. When great people begin to question what they are doing wrong when in fact they are not doing anything wrong, we've failed.

I sound preachy. I know I do. But I can't stop now, sorry.

You might look at my blog and see pretty pictures. I can explain that I love photography (which I do) and that I want to get a certain moment frozen in time (which I do). This means that I did not go out of my way to add this and that to make the picture standout. It was a real moment that I captured and snapped because to me it was beautiful; which is often why we take pictures in the first place. Something stands out to us which prompt us take the picture.

Now-a-days people are creating the moment to take a picture of. Why?

If we would spend less time trying to make our lives appear perfect and more time just living great, meaningful lives I really think we will all be the more better. There is a saying I love that I think needs repeating.

"If we saw inner beauty as the exterior, things would be ridiculously simple."

Please let me know your thoughts on this and what you think we can all do to combat it. If you do not think there's a problem, please feel free to tell me why. How has the "perfectness" of social media affected you? And if I've ever, ever made you think that my life is perfect and yours is not, please forgive me, because guess what? It most certainly is not.