goals.

On #GOALS.

When I started this blog I wasn’t sure what my goals were for writing it. If I’m completely honest, it was a mix of getting attention, seeming cool, and maybe a tiny bit of being able to express myself through writing. I was in that odd stage of discovering who I was, taking on different voices and hobbies to see what fit right. And all of these *goals* I had, who I wanted to be… all this left me confused as to who I was apart from how I presented myself to others.

I spent so much time scrolling through the impossibly perfect blogs and Insta feeds of influencers and travel bloggers and I tried to create something comparable to what THEY had. I was afraid to break the color-coordinated, VSCO filtered mold.

Maybe it was because I was too afraid to express my true self to people.

Maybe it was because I didn’t fully accept myself and embrace my own voice. I wanted to fit myself in a box: the smart one, the quirky one, the responsible one, the trendy one.

But we are people, and we’re not made to fit into molds.

Human beings may not be made for molds, but there is goodness in us. You are not your goals, or an archetype, or your Instagram feed. You are you, and that is good and okay and pretty darn beautiful.

Let’s also talk about Instagram a little. Why do we use it?

For attention, for validation, for comparison, for flexing on our exes, for fame, and for money, all of which are addictive. Social media sites are businesses, plain and simple. They exist to make money, which they make from us checking them 70 million times a day.

But honestly, it’s not inherently bad. Like lawn mowers or typewriters or hammers, social media is a tool, and it is in OUR hands. We can use it for good, or we can use it for evil. We can use it healthily, or we can obsess over it. If we make it our identity or our life, we are at the mercy of double-taps and comments.

I read a really good quote in a magazine (yes, a paper magazine, I’m that girl) about why it’s important to put the phone or the camera away even when whatever you are doing would look absolutely perFeCt on your Instagram. The quote was about how we need to work on allowing ourselves to be absorbed by some moments instead of trying to incessantly capture them. People seem to be all about experiences– but are we really trying to experience and enjoy and LIVE them, or just using them as social capital? I think there’s danger in over-capturing mindset, where we use our beautiful moments for our image.

I’ve still got a lot to learn. But going forward, I have different goals in this blog. First off, I’m not going to include my face anymore. For those who read this blog who know me, that’s cool. You know who I am and you’re not a stranger on the internet. But I want to focus more on my writing than my personal image. Oh yeah, and having my face with my name and where I travel on the public internet just creeps me out a little, so there’s that.

More goals. I don’t want to just churn out content to churn out content, sacrificing my creativity for no reason. I want to write things that I like and that others like, too. I don’t want the rat race of social media to take the art out of writing. I want to learn and I want to express. I want to develop my voice. I want to write on my own terms, about what I want and not for page views or likes or clout. I believe the internet can be a force for good. This is me. This is my writing.