Another Sunday, a new Sunday post coming your way.
How are we all? Still feeling the winter blues? I'm currently working on some things, trying to get my hands in as many pies as possible and trying to stay mentally sane and at the same time.
I've been thinking a lot about Instagram lately and how, after a few months of posting consistently, I burned out big time. Instagram wasn't meant to be my biggest platform or the most important one but I feel that, as time goes by, if you don't treat it more like a job, you won't go anywhere.
I miss the old days when all you had to do was take the pic, jazz it up a bit - usually with very bright, lomo effects - and post it. It was that simple. Then hashtags happened and presets and the mania of having a themed feed with the same colour palettes and everyone freaking out about the fact that you can't see how many likes you got. It is insane.
I'm okay with keeping a theme, I actually love spending time editing my pictures and coming up with new color palettes but I never thought it was going to be so hard and absolutely time-consuming. Now I freak out whenever I need to post but can't or if a pic is getting likes or not. I get it, Instagram is a job but it's also a way to stay creative and have fun. This is mainly why I took my sweet time away from the platform. I wasn't having fun anymore and it showed.
Every morning I did my best to shoot the greatest pics, with different props, different angles. I even tried going outside and have my mum take some pics of me. I was really struggling.
When you see all those people getting it right and growing, it's human nature to compare yourself to them and feel like shit. Like you're not going anywhere.
I love people who use Instagram as a way to tell a story, to express themselves, to bring up new topics, new discussions, new point of views and for a long time I've felt like I didn't have a point of view to share, I didn't have anything to say at all.
Until today. I got my mojo back and I'm having fun again. So can we all pinky promise that we won't post it just because we have to, like it's a chore and avoid feeling burned out and start having fun again, please?
On another news...
I got new books! Whoohoo! I'm so excited to try new genres, new authors, I even got a hardback - and I hate hardbacks! I remember two years ago when I kinda niched this blog down to books, I really wanted to be one of those people who got free books. I didn't understand how those book bloggers or booktubers could complain about having so many books on their plate and how they never got around to reading them.
Now I totally get it.
Do you treat IG as a job or are you still having fun posting what you want, whenever you want? If you are, cheers to you. I'm totally jealous.
*The books featured in this post have been kindly sent to me by Little, Brown.