Have you ever walked away from reading blogs and felt discouraged or disillusioned about your own home and life? I think for most of us, if we’re being honest, the answer is yes.
We see fabulous pictures of someone else’s perfect home with beautiful decor, the examples of crafts and activities they do with their kids, the amazing food they create in their kitchen…and we feel inadequate.
Lately, whenever I take a picture, I can’t help but laugh at the surrounding chaos. Because, you see, while I am very type-A, and we do live with less stuff than the average American family, and our home gets cleaned up every night before bed, during the day we live in our home, which means it’s messy and chaotic and…well, you’ll see.
So when I take a picture of some meal I’m serving, chances are that chaos isn’t very far outside of the scope of my camera. In fact, many times we have to kind of scoot it aside to make room to take the photo.
Let’s look at some examples:
Dinner in the oven before 5 p.m. is a rare enough occurrence that I took a picture of it. Despite the messy oven, there’s still something about this picture that might give you the impression that I have it all together. Until you see the larger version, of course. A sewing machine, laptop, pile of clean dishes and who-knows-what-else clutter up the counter as I go about my day!
Or how about this adorable picture of my oldest helping my youngest put on her shoes? Of course my girls are kind and loving and helpful to one another all the time…not. What you can’t hear in this picture is the 3-year-old off to the side screaming at the 5-year-old like a wild banshee because she’s not doing what she wants. Quaint indeed.
Or the picture of this bowl of tomatoes, which was also taken in a messy kitchen (look how close those cups are to the bowl on the picnic table, and you’d never know from the original photo!) while my tomato plants languish right outside the patio doors.
So next time you’re tempted to compare your real life to the Photoshop-perfect photos of someone else’s life, remember that we never truly see “the whole picture” online. And that’s okay, because we’re celebrating the best parts and sharing inspiration and encouragement…just as long as we keep it all in perspective!
Do you ever compare your life to photos you see on blogs? Are you a blogger who has to scoot the chaos to the side to take a photo like I do?
