Keeping It Real

*Prepare for things to get chatty*

A few days ago I was thinking about what’s important to me in a blog. Pretty images, yeah. Good content, of course. Beyond all of that, I realised that one of the most important factors to me in a blog, or in any aspect of life, is keeping it real.

Especially in today’s world of social media, perfectly positioned Instagrams, carefully worded Facebook statuses and edited tweets, it’s easy to think that everybody is doing better at life than you are. A pancake picture on a Sunday can make you wonder why you’re spending the day at home, and how you “never do anything nice like that.” Or someone’s pictures from “the best night ever!!” on Facebook can make you wish that you went out more, and “am I wasting my life sitting at home watching Netflix?”

Thankfully, I think we’ve come to realise and tell ourselves that social media isn’t real life and doesn’t reflect reality. And I think that is so important. Next time you’re scrolling through Instagram, remind yourself that what you’re seeing is one second of someone’s day. Just one second.

This applies to the blogging world as well. As this amazing community grows, so do the opportunities and experiences it brings. As bloggers, we tend to utilise every form of social media, and fill it with happy snippets of our day. But behind the OOTDs and event invitations, it isn’t always glitz and glamour. There’s the worry of “Is my blog doing well enough? Am I promoting my content enough? Should I be doing what X, Y and Z are doing?” There’s real life and real problems.

I’m not putting a downer on anything here, and of course life can be wonderful and amazing and fantastic, but it isn’t always that way. And that’s what I try my best to put across on WhatSheDoesNow, on every social media platform and in real life. I want to keep it real.

Chances are, if I’m quiet on social media for a few days, I’m probably not feeling the best. But then again, that photo above was taken on a down day. It looks great – coffee, comfy cushions, a warm dressing gown, gel nails and my laptop. If I saw that on Instagram, it would make me think “God, I wish I could do that and just sit and relax.” That’s the thing with social media, it makes you feel whatever you let it make you feel.

I just wanted to talk about this because, as I’ve said, I think it’s so important to keep it real. I probably keep things a bit too real. If I’m having a bad day, I’ll let someone know. If college didn’t go so well, I’ll say it. If I had a bad experience, I’ll talk about it. Saying that, I don’t like spreading negative energy. I’d like to think, rather, that I’m spreading real energy.

Hopefully what I’m saying makes sense, but basically I just want to let you know that I’m all about keeping it real. I’ll never pretend that life is always full of sunshine and roses, because it’s not. I think that if we all focused on keeping it real, and not pretending to everyone that our life is as perfect as our Instagram feeds tell the world it is, we’d experience a whole lot less of “Why isn’t my life that amazing?” and we’d be pretty happy with what we have.

After all, it’s the negative experiences and the tough days that make the sun shine a little brighter and roses smell a little sweeter on the good days.