Earlier today I was going through some of our photos, trying to decide which ones I wanted to print, when I stopped on this one. Everything in this picture makes me laugh. Henry's frustration in the monster costume's head piece is obvious, but beyond the cute "he's going to just looove this photo when he's older," there's a bit more here that got my wheels turning.
I started thinking about blogging. And how I might take 100 photos, but I'll post 20 here. And guess what? Those 20 photos are the best of the bunch. If we're talking about this past Halloween we probably tried for a good 10 minutes to get Henry to keep his hat on long enough so we could capture the image of him dressed up for his first trick-or-treat. If I wanted to I could have posted 20 photos of our squirmy little costume-hating boy, arching his back and just not having it, but that wouldn't be pretty to look at would it? So I put up the good ones, where we got a slight smile and we're all looking at the camera.
And isn't that kind of blogging in a nutshell for most people? Putting your best self forward. And adding to the idea of taking 100 photos and choosing the best, there might be 100 moments in a day that I could blog about. I'm going to choose just a few and leave the rest. In my world, on my blog, I choose the positive. I choose to share the happy moments, and although I try to touch on random things here or there, even if I was in the worst mood, was a total brat to my husband, or just felt totally sad all day, I won't usually get into it. But it still exists. And I think as a reader (and writer) of blogs it's important to remember this. It's so easy to get caught up in the very attractive world that's put out there. Many years ago when I was just starting out in the whole online thing I can remember feeling those very unwelcome pangs of not measuring up when I'd take a peek at so many other sites or blogs that portrayed a "perfect" life. Although I was so happy in what I was doing, there always seemed to be someone else doing something so much cooler. As I got older and wiser though I realized that yes, of course there is. There always will be. The key to happiness to be happy with you. And if you're not, be inspired and change it. Getting lost in wishing your life was like someone else's is the biggest waste of time there is, and just feeds into that negative mindset. Blogs have the potential to play a huge role in that because essentially these sites are just little windows into other peoples' lives. You just need to choose with what perspective you're viewing from.
I think at times that because I am a happy person that really, really thrives on positivity, this blog often reflects only that. I try and be 110% me at all times here, as authentic as I can get (without throwing in some curse words), but still, this space is only a small part of me and my days. I try and remember that same thing when I am reading other blogs too, and I think it's an important thing to keep in in the back of your mind as you both read and write.
That's all. I wasn't even going to blog again tonight but I was working on a project for another site and got sidetracked looking at photos, then started thinking, and now, here we are. :)
xoxo