For awhile now I’ve been noticing something about myself. I love to read blogs—probably a little bit too much actually. I love to see the creativity and excitement happening in other people’s lives. It fascinates me. But sometimes after I spend time looking for “inspiration” I just feel worthless, crummy, and like we are the most boring loser family alive. Why is that? I’ve been stewing over a post of my own about this phenomenon when lo and behold someone beat me to it.
Emily over at Jones Design company put it into words perfectly. Go ahead and click that link to go read what she has to say.
I felt better just knowing that someone as crazy talented as her actually still felt insecure sometimes. I also love that she reminded me that it’s my choice whether I leave feeling inspired or worthless. I’m going to have to work on that one.
How do you make sure you don’t end up feeling insecure when reading blogs of the many amazingly talented bloggers out there?
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3 comments:
We have talked alot about this on a homeschooling list I'm on. The list moderator pointed out that new homeschooling moms spend far more time looking at blogs for "inspiration" than do the experienced moms, and the experienced moms were far more focused as far as how they spent their time online, i.e. looking for specific things for specific lessons rather than just searching for the elusive and difficult-to-define "inspiration". I've thought about that alot and it's at least helped me understand why I visit some of the blogs I visit and whether or not they actually contribute much to my life.
One other thing that helps me is remembering some of the things I do when I blog. For example, when I'm shooting a photo that I intend to post, I will often move the stacks of junk out of the way or shoot from a certain angle in the room so blog readers aren't going to see how messy my house really is. I'm definitely presenting a facade! And everybody else does too!
This is funny because another friend of mine just posted something similar on her blog. I was talking to a third friend about it who thought I was always doing fun and creative things with my kids. I pointed out that I don't post the pictures of me yelling at them or cleaning up spilled cereal or of them sitting in front of a Disney movie while I try and get my brain back together. I only post the good stuff. I've been thinking a lot about trying not to let my life revolve around my blog and not living moments just so I can blog about them or put a facebook status about them. I don't want to live a fake life. I'm actually going to do a blog post about it :).
Agree with you 100% Facebook can be the same way - I have "friends" who post perfect lives on their blogs and facebook pages. I've stopped worrying about it, because I have good friends who know the real me, the messy, crazy, unorganized me. the me who forgets to put buttermilk in the banana bread and has to toss it after teasing my family with the smell for an hour. That's life, that's real. The "porno" blogs are just that - they aren't real, and if they are, I'm not sure I'd be friends with those people.
Most of my inspiration blogs are people who show the messy process of their projects, so I can see that it took work and mess to get to something worthwhile. That's how I avoid walking away feeling discouraged. If you saw all the paper/fabric/food scraps, all the dishes, all the mess, you'd feel better too.
It's like someone who spent time dieting and only showed us the fab body afterward. Yeah, that could make me feel insecure, but you have to let it.
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