2012.
It was the year my dear friend Caity and I went on a remarkable 6-month trip to 12 countries around the world. We used our Facebook accounts and YouTube channel to update friends and family with our travel videos and photos. Really, we didn't spend much time on social media because we were too busy being immersed in cultures and experiences where wifi was rare. Perhaps that's the way it should be. :)
2012.
It was also the year that I discovered Instagram. I discovered it only a week or so after I returned from our life-changing, mostly-social-media-free world trip. Slowly, this exciting new Instagram became a minor obsession for me. I love photography because it allows me to capture beauty, share it with others, and look back on it - to later be able to remember and relish in the beauty I've had the blessing to behold. For 8 years I used my Instagram account to share photos of beauty, friends, boyfriends, travels, and the all-too-familiar selfies.
But then I started to feel like I was too busy capturing beauty and having to immediately post it on Instagram. I got the dopamine hit of the likes and comments that the app so strategically designed to keep the addiction running. I sought attention and affirmation and validation but also felt a strong pull to share the beauty I was witnessing in day to day life.
I loved creating an overall beautiful appeal of all the little squares next to each other on my Insta page. When I received a beautiful DSLR Nikon camera as a very generous college graduation gift from family, it allowed me to share even more details of the colors and wonders and highlights of my life and beauty. I felt my Instagram was shining bright. I was proud of my Instagram. I loved it.
For much of those 8 years, I posted a new photo almost every. single. day. What an effort. I would try to write captions that were inspiring. I sometimes shared the struggles I was going through. I shared the highlights. It was just this past year, 2020 (a memorable year, eh?), that I felt burdened by the addiction of the app and also a struggle with envy. I was envying friends and comparing myself to others' lives as I scrolled scrolled scrolled. It was pulling my attention so much from the contentment I ought to foster in my own life that it felt burdensome.
So I went radical I guess. I also had this feeling that I wanted to live a quieter existence, which meant not being existent on social media and also going to work and live on a jungle farm in Ecuador. Talk about change!
It's been great. I have much more free time to read, contemplate, explore, learn, connect with those around me, etc. I stay in touch with family and friends who are close and care to know what I'm up to. I have this blog website to share my musings and post my photos so I can still share beauty that hopefully will give my 'audience' a breath of fresh air and admiration for nature.
I want to be clear that I don't think it's bad at all to have social media. I think it has many positive aspects. And maybe someday I will open it up again to help showcase and promote my dream farm. ;)
In the meantime, I'm remaining blissfully social media free and cultivating contentment with the life I'm living now. More on that in another blog perhaps. :)
Lots of love,
Kari
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