Pages

Friday, April 5, 2013

Honesty


Blogging is something I have done since 2006. (See first blog post ever over here)

I have always loved to write. I love to put my words out there for someone to read. Over the past years I have struggled with blogging. I've struggled with envy, jealousy, low self-esteem, feeling like my life is lesser than others. I've blogged, stopped blogging, started again. Then, I got married and moved, and started a new blog. I felt like I was finally in a place in my life that I believed people would want to read about (once again blogging for the world and not myself). Although I have no kids yet, can't be a mommy blogger... I felt like I was in a place where others can relate. 

Yesterday a close friend of mine posted this article from RELEVANT magazine

This quote truly hit home. 


"My life looks better on the Internet than it does in real life. Everyone’s life looks better on the internet than it does in real life. The Internet is partial truths—we get to decide what people see and what they don’t. That’s why it’s safer short term. And that’s why it’s much, much more dangerous long term.
Because community—the rich kind, the transforming kind, the valuable and difficult kind—doesn’t happen in partial truths and well-edited photo collections on Instagram. Community happens when we hear each other’s actual voices, when we enter one another’s actual homes, with actual messes, around actual tables telling stories that ramble on beyond 140 pithy characters."

Truth is, my worth is not in how many comments I get on this blog or how many "pageviews" I have. My worth is not built up in how many pictures of coffee shops, my macbook, my puppy, some close up shot of something I can't even tell what it is because I'm trying to be "artistic". My worth is in the Lord. My worth is in the real world. The now. My life is summed up of love from those in my life right now. Friendships and community. Time spent with my husband, my family, my friends. Time. Time is something I waste plenty of looking at blogs and pinterest, and Instagram. Sitting and daydreaming that I had a house full of antique and vintage rustic tables and white walls and "mint accents" (as the author of this article so sweetly refers to). I look at pinterest and want my closet to just change itself and fill itself with cute adorable outfits of all the things I have "pinned" from Pinterest. I want to be in great shape and motivated like all the people I read about working out and then I want to go bake a delicious cake the next moment.  I waste so much time searching the lives of others and reading about others. I can't wrap my mind around the fact that we spend hours every day looking into others lives and focusing less on our own. 

I love blogging. I love the blog world. I love that we can get ideas from others. That the world is so connected that we can see into the daily life of those around the world.
I am not going to stop blogging. I enjoy it. But I do hope to spend less time being envious and so concerned about how I can become more "popular" in the blog world. 

Is anyone else with me?! Or am I all alone in this feeling?!?! 

2 comments:

  1. Okay I just stumbled upon your blog (from lovely life) while waiting for my husband to get home so we can take off with extended family for the beach.

    I HEAR you and couldn't agree more.

    I too started my blog for me and then before I knew it had commenters and was stressed out trying to put up good posts and comment back. I am back to a good place where what you see is what you get and with every post I am more and more open and honest which I like.

    Thanks for the reminder. We need to stop caring about comments, except the ones that truly matter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is so beautifully written. We all need reminders like this to keep on the same track. Blogging can be a healthy thing or something that can take over and create a lot of pride and selfishness. Thank-you for this perfectly written reminder!

    ReplyDelete