On Instagram & The Perfect Life
Nobody’s life is perfect. We all know that. If you, by some remote chance, think you know someone who has a perfect life, think again. You’re dead wrong. At the same time, if, for some reason, you think your life is perfect, then I’m pretty sure our definition of perfect isn’t the same. I’m not talking about living happily, contentedly, or gratefully, I’m talking about sheer perfection. Never a hair out of place, never a work-out missed, never a library book overdue, never a C in any coursework made. Perfection, my friends, doesn’t exist. That’s truth, plain and simple.
I was talking with my friend Rachel Shingleton a while back, and she brought up an interesting question that someone had once asked her: what was the eternal significance of her creative efforts? I’m pretty sure the person who posed the question must have been living under the assumption that for any of us to do any good on this earth that we must forsake all our wordly belongings and go preach the gospel to natives. And if that’s the way the way anyone thinks, then I’m sorry, because it means that you probably feel very limited in your own abilities to make an eternal impact right where you are. But the question stuck with me, and I’ve thought about it several times since chatting with Rachel.
Fast forward a few months. I was emailing with my friend and client, Holly Mathis. I had asked her to think about what her calling and purpose was. She had responded with the wording that “beauty ministered” to her. I related immensely to the statement. When the world around us is crazy and out of control, whether it’s our home, our neighborhood, or even our community in a larger aspect, sometimes a “little slice of heaven” can be a calming relief.
If you’re a mama and an entrepreneur, or one or the other, I have a feeling you might know what I mean. Yesterday, I spent the day scrubbing the grout on our utility room floor, and straightening the shelves that serve as our pantry for our little crowded kitchen. At the end of the day, to me, it was beautiful. I felt productive. I had used my energy to make something in this world BETTER.
If left to it’s own devices, the world would deteriorate. It’s the in natural order of the universe for things to roll down hill, to get worse rather than better. We, as humans, have the ability to put energy into things to make them better. They can be big things, or small things, it doesn’t matter. What matters is if we each, in our own efforts, make our own little corners of this world a more beautiful place, then maybe we’re offering (gifting?) someone else with a little “slice of heaven”, a little respite, a little rest from the weary world and the rat race that I sometimes feel like we’re all stuck in.
My Instagram friend Aedriel wrote an interesting article on her blog last week, about an article out of Relevant magazine. The article was titled, “Stop Instagramming Your Perfect Life”, and challenged the reader to stop and find connection, and live passionately with gratitude and grace. I completely agree, but I also hold fast to the belief that if, as graphic designers and event planners and creatives and entrepreneurs, we stop doing our jobs–our jobs to make our own little corner of the world a more beautiful place–we would be contributing to the natural downward spiral of this world. In short, we’d be lazy. We’d be falling short in not using the natural gifts that God has given us.
I’ll be honest. I work pretty diligently to make my Instagram feed as beautiful as possible. Not because I’m trying to show off or make people think my life is beautiful, but because I want to remember these moments that ARE beautiful. I’m not going to say that my Instagram feed IS beautiful to the rest of the world, but to me it is, and that’s all that matters. It’s a collection of my days, a chronicle of what I’m learning, a tiny scrapbook of my kids growing up, and I want that collection to be the best it possibly can be. I’ve worked hard to research apps that produce the kind of pictures that I like, and I’ve consulted with photographer friends who have given me tips on photo composition. I analyze professional photographers’ Instagram feeds to see if I can learn anything that might challenge me to make my own feed, my own photos, my own art, and my own work better. And I do it because I believe that beauty makes this world a better place.
Life isn’t perfect, but moments are. I challenge you to look around your world and start creating and capturing your own beautiful moments, and collecting them somewhere, anywhere, that you can reflect on and use to inspire you later. If life is made up of moments, then putting the effort into making the most of those moments, and making them beautiful, will add up to…well, it will add up to a well-designed life.
Happy Instagramming, friends.
xoxo,
Whitney
I totally agree! I think Instagram is for recognizing those beautiful moments in mundane everyday life. I’m pretty picky about who I follow on Instagram, and my main criteria is that the content of the feeds be visually inspiring. I also really admire people who are able to share the imperfect aspects through the comments of Instagram, while still keeping their photos visually appealing. I get what the author of that original article was trying to say and there are certainly people who aren’t being authentic with social media in general, but you don’t have to follow those people. I love the way you use Instagram, Whitney!
I’m so glad you wrote about this. I want to pull my hair out everytime I read someone else on FB post that ridiculous article about how Instagram makes the author feel so bad about her life.
I read stuff all the time about this topic. “Blogs make me feel bad about myself. Magazines make me feel bad about myself. Models make me feel bad about myself.” What’s up with this? Why all the negativity? The truth is, this has ZERO to do with the magazines, the models, or the blog. It has EVERYTHING to do with the person themselves. And they’re trying to hold the magazines/blogs/models/whatever accountable for the way THEY feel, which is completely wrong.
Do I feel less-than when I see girls with “perfect” bodies? Yes, absolutely, sometimes I do. But that’s MY responsibility — and usually when I feel jealous of someone else, it’s because I’m not making the effort to do my part to make myself happier. Happiness is directly related to how much responsibility I’m willing to take for it.
So my answer to the Instagram article is this: Why do you feel so badly about your life that seeing beauty elsewhere only enhances your negative attitude? And then this — what are you willing to do about it?
This is such an inspiring, beautiful, well-written post, Whitney! It really spoke to me. xoxo
Wow! This is timely today. I spent a little bit of time this morning filling out your Authenticate workshop survey, and therefore thinking about values. I think it’s important to honor God by using one’s God-given talents, whatever that talent may be.
Later in the day, I kept tearing up thinking about Lilly Pulitzer. Which is a little odd, since I didn’t actually know the lady. But I keep thinking about how she inspired me, and so many people. What an incredible talent and legacy.! Lilly Pulitzer made the world a better place! She made the world more beautiful, she made my heart beat faster when I would see that perfect hot pink “fill in the blank” item that I HAD to have. Eternal significance of creative efforts?! I think that’s awesome. Lilly Pulitzer used her God given talent and made the world a better place.
I love instagram because its visual and easy and fast. And {a little bit} social (I really need to get out more). And it inspires me. It probably won’t have an impact on my life like Lilly did, but I’d miss it like I did webvan if it was gone tomorrow.
So thank you for another timely, relavent blog post! You’ve been pretty inspiring tp me recently. I’m looking forward to meeting you in Nashville.; )
Great post Whitney! The quote above is beautiful to the eyes as much as it is to my soul…AND so true. I try to remember…even in the ‘not perfect’ moments I try to find a little piece of humor, beauty, positive spin, or learning opportunity. Rachel, your comment is so so true! I wish there was a ‘like’ button…I would ‘like’ it ten times over!
I am also so glad you wrote about this! After all the hullabaloo regarding that article came across FB and Instagram I finally checked it out the other day. And I’ve been bothered by it ever since. I love seeing other people’s babies, dinners, views, latest projects and anything else they deem worthy to take a picture of that day. It makes me smile and I love sharing just as much and that, my friend, is worth every second of it! You put my feelings into words, Whitney! Hope to see you soon…maybe at Inspired this fall!!! XO
Beautifully written, Whitney!! I completely agree with you. Though I felt like the original article that sparked this had fantastic points, I wanted to address the issue of taking responsibility for how we feel. That’s exactly what you’ve done here (as well as Rachel’s spot-on comment) in reminding us that we shouldn’t apologize for striving to find beauty around us. Posting pretty pictures does not tell the whole story but why should it? That’s not the point. My instagram feed is not my entire life. Would we really follow someone that worked to find the ugliness in their life and only posted that? Of course not, there’s enough ugly in the world.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us. Muah!! 😉
Whitney,
I’m not exactly sure how I found your site or when I started following you, but I also follow Rachel and Kate’s blogs too! Actually, now that I think about it all three of you have beautiful websites and write amazing blog posts that hit so close to home I look forward to reading the new ones as they’re posted!
As a new mom with a full time job AND trying to relaunch my side business I find that if I spend too much time looking at blogs and scrolling through Instagram I start to feel really inadequate. As a person and as a mom. It’s amazing how much you all have accomplished and without social media I never would have had the pleasure of seeing of all the gorgeous photos and finding inspiration. As someone who works in social media for my career, it’s even harder to remind myself though that all social tools (not just Instagram) tend to highlight the best parts of peoples lives. Now, you can take that and walk away inspired or walk away upset. I go back and forth, realizing of course that everyone has good days and bad days. I love that technology can take my bad day and turn it into a good one from the internet “connections” I have made.
Great post and thank you for sharing, both wise words and lovely photos ladies!
EXCELLENT!!!!
This really resonated with me on multiple levels! So glad I read this this morning. Hope to have a cup of coffee with you someday!