via pinterest
Confession: I instagram stalk. It's the new form of stalking that has replaced blog stalking. 789 photos that aren't private? Don't mind if I do.
But here is the thing, the majority of them that I stalk, 99.9% are of these women that I just don't understand how they work, function, handle life. They all represent my "dream", large family, succesful husband, beautiful home, and I mean bee you tee full. Perfect fashion sense, artists, famous friends and plenty of selfies to feed my obsession. Their lives look perfect.
And I know, I know, I know, no one has a perfect life.
But you know, I'm young (ha) and I still like to dream that maybe someone is figuring it out.
Question: How DO THEY DO IT? They post pictures of their amazing desserts, and they are stick thin. They exercise with their husbands. What? Their kids have cute and new clothes. They have nice cars. They have time to look fantastic all the time. I just don't get it. And yes, I know these are just .1 millisecond snippets of their lives and it can be made to look too perfect. But...
Here is the rub,
I like it.
I like how perfect it looks and I feel like it motivates me (but it makes me depressed at the same time). And i realized it might be a replacement for hollywood media for me. Yes, I cut out that media from my diet a long time ago. No people.com, or celebrity fashion sites or even mainstream tv shows. The only snippets I get are the 2 minutes in line at the grocery store, and even the covers of them make me gag now. Watching and seeing those women made me feel incredibly incapable of success. I thought it was motivating, but it never helped an ounce. Once I stopped keeping up with the gossip and fashion and all that what-not I experienced a happiness I hadn't had for a long time. I love it. Very freeing. Like going to the beach and realizing you are, thankfully, doing a pretty ok job so far.
So maybe a new diet is in order. A perfect people diet, to not follow blogs or instagram accounts of people I don't know. Or heavens to Betsy the home tours on designmom.com. Oh! Those throw me into a spiral. Because not knowing them creates a level of idealism that I can't handle. I know my friends, I know their trials and I love them tremendously and completely. They inspire me, and lift me, and motivate me. And, most importantly, they know me. The real me, not the wwwdotme.
What about you? Have you gone on a media diet and it worked and stuck? Or do those things never bother you?
4 comments:
you know, i should be in bed. and i should be "researching" our drive to d.c. - so, i'm obviously not any sort of healthy media example, but. i just exed everyone from every social media thingy that i'm not related to or dear friends with and it changed my life. no more reading facebook statuses from random high school acquaintances. no more drooling over nienie's expensive wardrobe. no more instagram envy. i just chuckle at nieces and nephews and enjoy friends in far flung places. media as it was meant to be. try throwing all those perfect people out of your life. they won't miss you. and i imagine you won't miss them. me, on the other hand, you would miss.
If you ever want to feel better about yourself, stop by my house. You're not the only one who isn't capable of doing everything that you want to. I don't read blogs as often as I used to because I realized that reading them made me feel guilty about not taking my writing as seriously or whatever, things I could spend more time on if I wasn't spending it reading blogs.
And for the record, I adore you. So there.
Ah Annie I find you refreshingly honest and hilariously entertaining! I think that we all wish we were a little more like "her". Just the other day my very own sweet sister told me she wished she was more like me and my jaw hit the floor because I've always wished I had her drive, ambition, organization skills and curly brown hair lol... I guess the grass really isn't always greener.....
You can still follow me because I'm fat and old and pretty much a mess all the time. Very few selfies of my wrinkled old mug. I too follow the perfect pretty skinny mommies. I kind of can't believe people live that way. They are like aliens to me.
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