Instagram Is an Illusion

Instagram’s recent update allows users to hide likes from their own posts and/or others’ posts.

um, excuse me?

how am i supposed to get validation NOW???

*whispers* ~Instagram comments~

hahaha no, but honestly, i’m a big advocate for this feature and here’s why.

as much as we want to say “Instagram likes don’t matter” (they don’t), we do get some kind of validation from them. we have this innate need to feel validated with being human and there’s something about comments, likes, and followers that make us feel seen and heard.

but then we compare our comments, likes, and followers to Ashley’s. and then we wonder why our noses aren’t shaped like hers and why we aren’t living our best lives traveling in Europe. we dig ourselves into this hole and end up on her ex’s page creeping on the new girl he’s with and suddenly wonder why our relationship isn’t picture perfect or why our dating lives are
in shambles. IT’S. NORMAL.

personally, i’ve never been the type to let the amount of likes or views i get on a post affect my mood. do i notice it? yes, but i’ve never deleted something because its “performance” didn’t do well. if anything, i’ve archived something because it didn’t match my ~aesthetic~ (i know, i’m throwing up too). i’m the first to call myself out for being extra with this “aesthetic” i create, but it’s truly for my own sanity and i do it because i enjoy it and it’s fun. though if i’m being painfully honest, it’s something that i can control when i feel like i have zero control over other parts of my life (don’t tell my therapist).

would i love if my TikToks spread like wildfire and got 1 million views? of course. would i love if my blog posts were read by thousands of people and praised for? of course. but that’s not why i create. i do it because i genuinely love it and if there’s anything that i’m doing with the intent of influencing or inspiring, my bottom line is that it could help or resonate with or light a fire beneath ONE person, and even though i may never know, there’s always that possibility. you may not know what your purpose is in life, but believing that what you do and say makes a difference gives you a sense of fulfillment. and believe me, you ARE making a difference.

i know that many people struggle with this sort of validation from social media, especially the younger generation who were basically handed iPhones and taking selfies since the womb. hiding likes might be a potential problem for businesses, brands, and influencers... and people could easily rely on other metrics and/or platforms for the dopamine hit... but overall,
i think it would improve people’s mental health and happiness. it’s also at least addressing the problem and creating dialogue. my hope is that it would either almost challenge or force people to find happiness within themselves and not seek it from outside affirmations.

if you ever find yourself having difficulty separating Instagram from reality, take a step back and remember that social media only scratches the surface. how you live through your actions and words and how you treat others offline is far more important. your Instagram likes are not who you are at your core. the real party and the real gift is who you are as a whole and in person.

we choose the parts of our lives that we want others to see and not everyone is posting their daily battles.

don’t compare your behind the scenes to someone else’s highlight reel.

I Have a Confession

swrkr gang. listen. so, i’ve been single for all of my 22 years of life. *GASPS* i know! i can’t believe i wake up every day this beautiful and badass without someone obsessed with every bit of me too!

and yes, i’ve had my fair share of entanglements and situationships, and i’m not going to sit here and act like i don’t have those moments of
“i’m going to be sad and lonely forever” or “when am i going to stop singing Let Me Love You to the imaginary person in the passenger seat of my car?!” because i absolutely do. i love love, but i have to remind myself, it’s so much more than that… relationships are about commitment and compromise and being honest and choosing each other over and over, which isn’t always easy.

throughout this season of being single
(more like a lifetime, i think i’m pretty good
at this) i’ve learned so much about myself—loving my alone time, being horribly unapologetically self-aware—i don’t think you have to know everything about yourself before being in a relationship (impossible... we’re always growing and learning) but i do think that the relationship you create with yourself sets a foundation for a healthy one with someone else. the beautiful thing about that is, when that person comes, you learn even more from them. you complement and make each other better.

one of my favorite quotes is:

“know yourself, know your worth.”

it has been my Twitter header since high school and will stay that way until my grave. i also want it as my first tattoo eventually when i get over my fear of the potential pain. Champagne Papi said it himself, but it has always meant so much more to me than being a Drake lyric and i will never not credit my old friend, Osama, for instilling that in me.

i bring this up because self-worth is often talked about when it comes to relationships and heartbreak because as human beings, we look for approval from others and when we get rejected, we start to doubt and question our worth. we stray away from knowing that all the approval we need is from ourselves.

i always like sharing this story of my first year of college in AWR when my professor had us do an activity where we wrote something down that we were going through—maybe we hadn’t told anyone yet—and he collected our notes and passed them back out randomly/anonymously. whoever got your note was supposed to write something back. well... my paper was ✨yellow✨ so i knew exactly who got mine. it was this boy, and he wrote:

“self-love and self-worth are tremendously more important than getting a boyfriend. if you think about it, you will go through most of your life on your own and you experience many things alone. it’s vastly more important to be strong, self-reliant, and know your character than always searching for another person. a healthy relationship will come as you lead a healthy life and surround yourself with like-minded people.”

...yeah, i married him after that.

but can we like take a moment??? that was a freshman boy in college who wrote that??? *uGh* i could not have said it better myself. hoping it brings a new perspective or emphasis on the mindset of embracing your singleness.

the longest relationship you’ll ever have is the one with yourself.

if you’re reading this and you’re single... BABY welcome to the club!!! being single is your superpower!!! use this time to invest in you and your passions. get to know what you like and don’t like in the dating world. have fun.
take chances. be vulnerable.

being vulnerable can suck, i know. it’s scary and you get hurt, but there’s so much power
in vulnerability.

*cue Brené Brown’s Ted Talk*

“vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it's also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging,
of love.”

in the big picture, you have to believe that the love you seek is seeking you.

SAY IT WITH ME:

the love i seek is seeking me.

this doesn’t mean to go searching for it. it means that like vibration attracts like vibration. it’ll come to you when the universe is ready and when you’ll least expect it. good things
take time.

and if you’re reading this and you’re in a relationship... i only hope that it’s healthy, you’re happy, and that you two bring out the best in each other.

you deserve a love that isn’t hard.
that resonates with you. that feels good.

a significant other will come. there’s so much love in friendship and family, life, YOURSELF. don’t forget that.

Healing Girl Summer

anyone else see memories on Snapchat from when quarantine started and cry/laugh?

quarantine sucked for a lot of reasons…
locally, nationally, globally… but PERSONALLY, the growth has been immaculate.

hot girl summer turned into
✨healing girl summer✨

not only did my TikTok journey begin
(still working on the famous part), the biggest thing for me was healing and choosing myself.

healing is never a straight line and no one is 100% healed. over quarantine, i took the steps to choose me in a way i never thought i could. did i want to? not necessarily. was it hard? so bittersweet (i have and always will have love for this person) but it’s what i needed to fully let go. and let me tell you, it was so freeing.

if you’re going through something similar where you can’t seem to move on or you’re falling back to old habits, connections, people… remember, healing takes time…

(bro it took me four years)

it’s not “over” until you say it is. sometimes we hold on because we want “one more” in hopes that we won’t ever have to get to the part where we have to let go.

it’s okay to outgrow people we love. it’s okay to appreciate what we had for what it was.

create your own closure. know your worth. what’s meant for you will always be yours.

when you’re genuinely changing, growing, maturing, confident, happy, secure… you won’t have to say it...

it’ll shine right through you like sunbeams.

please don’t think you need to be 100% healed to deserve love and good things in life because you most absolutely do.