For someone who currently and plans to *hopefully* for a long time base their career off of online content and social media, I. Hate. It. 

A DARLING magazine article I was reading the other day described how we go about using social media every day. She started to discuss how she felt how Facebook, or any other social media platform per say, is like a grocery store:
“You might see a friend or neighbor there and catch up on how your mom is doing, where their kid has moved, or what random groceries they’re buying because of yet another 30-second recipe video. Much like a grocery store, social media has a plethora of things in stock, but there’s also plenty you can’t expect to find, like restaurant-quality French toast. And if you run over there when you’re really hungry, well, it’s all downhill from here.”

The last sentence hit me, hard. Don’t get me wrong: I love Instagram. I live for the aesthetically pleasing and seasonally colorful coordinating pictures on the feeds of all the other bloggers I follow, I adore getting updates from my friends at other schools, and I don’t mind seeing my sweet Jayhawks on my feed when I pass by @kuhoops every once and awhile as well. But my enjoyment of all this can go from 100-0 really quick by seeing one thing I didn’t want to. Whether it be something I wasn’t invited to, an outfit that looks much better on someone else than I imagine it would on myself, or even dumb little things that people mindlessly post can and sometimes do put me into the worst of moods. It’s not something I’m proud of, or am glad that happens, or even know WHY it happens, but it does, and I know I’m not alone. It’s not when I am mindlessly scrolling before class starts or while waiting in the Starbucks line that my ego is more vulnerable to everything I see on my screen. It’s when I start doubting myself, my self-worth, my value in other people’s lives, etc…that my brain starts to almost SEARCH for online reasonings to validate all these bad feelings. I feel like I’ve been distant with someone lately? Oh, the picture with that other friend they posted MUST mean they hate me now and have a new best friend. Another perfect blogger picture? Oh she’s my age too? I am failing and should give up now because I’m not at that level yet. Another picture of my younger sister wearing MY clothes…yeah no that’s actually pretty normal. (hehe kidding…kinda…either way I had to give a little sister shoutout, she’s 16 today! woo!!)

But really, your noggin will search for bad when it’s hungry. Pay attention to that. I debated giving up social media altogether for about .5 seconds until I realized I get paid to post on one Instagram account and get a grade in art class for posting on another…so that was hopeless. Plus, there are the TRILLIONS of positive aspects of online and social media as well. I wouldn’t be such a Public Relations and Marketing nerd if I didn’t believe in the positive power of social media as well as all of the networking and opportunities it can bring about! Basically, in today’s society, I’d be putting myself at a disadvantage for not using social media. However, I knew I had to do something about how it made me feel.

A week ago I was following over 1500 people on Instagram, and probably seeing 20% of that content. (yeah, i’m yet another blogger angsty about the janky Insta algorithm, what’s new.) It hit me one night when I was genuinely getting FRUSTRATED that I hadn’t been on social media all day and it was taking me forever to get through my entire feed…talk about a first world problem right there. I was getting real-life anxiety symptoms over not being able to see everyone’s pictures and “keep up” if you will. It was one of those things where I was stressing out and getting upset and didn’t even truly know why.

Then and there is when I started unfollowing people. I was scrolling and realized that some of the people I followed were people I have never even spoken to in real life, or wouldn’t even choose to if I got the chance. People I hadn’t seen in years, friends of friends of friends, and far…FAR…too many food accounts. (honestly, I didn’t unfollow too many of those actually…)  There was a list: if they didn’t encourage me, inspire me, or keep me informed, the account had to go. At one point I stopped feeling guilty for any of it, and I think that was where my, and many other’s, problems usually begin: thinking that we are required or obligated to follow or interact with people in our lives. If seeing it doesn’t bring you joy, and you have a chance YOURSELF to change that, why don’t you. Unfollow accounts that stress you out, people that make you feel anxious or upset, or anything that doesn’t encourage you to be the best version of yourself.

That all being said, make sure YOUR account is also one you’d want people to be following. Use social media as a platform to inspire others and yourself. Showcase things you’re proud of, things that make you you, and things that you love. It’s your little grid of squares girl, use em wisely.

The DARLING article ended with this and I couldn’t leave it out:
“Instead, let’s invest more into the strength of people uniquely placed in our spheres, rather than working so hard to articulate who we ‘are’ on the internet, cowering under the weight of the world listening.”

&&&&& with all that I am done for this post friends. As always thanks for reading these wordy rants and here’s to hoping they made you feel something. Feelings are good, especially on rainy Mondays. Until next time, xoxo, Ally

 

 

*photo link*

Hey there friends, before I even begin as to where I’ve been: first things first…I’ve been SO! DANG! FRUSTRATED! With the blog logistical world this past month. I had such a fun Valentine’s Day post I wanted to go up that week with such a cute little gift guide widget. Well, turns out the hosting I use doesn’t accommodate to the widget I created. Turns out I have zero clue how to properly find hosting that does and when I do turns out I have zero clue how to install it. So, moral of the pretty pathetic sounding story: most of the time I have ZERO CLUE what I am doing!!!!!!!!!! (just incase any of you needed a friend in knowing you also have zero clue what’s going on at this point in life)

So I’m about to just go out on a limb here and start off the meat of this blog post by quoting The Office; but I feel like not too many people will be TOO upset by that. Anyways,

“I hate the idea that someone out there hates me”

HEY PAM!! SAME GIRL!!! ME TOO!!! I FEEL YA!!! I FEEL YA LITERALLY EVERY SECOND OF EVERYDAY WOW OH WOW!! But really, I think I have said this exact thing countless times and it never fails to resonate with me time and time again.  I will admit it with everything I do, and I know I am not alone, I am your textbook definition of a people pleaser. I absolutely despise nothing more than saying the word “no” to people. It physically pains me and not having an answer for people’s questions or solutions to people’s problems? I think I literally start itching and contract a fever. Okay, slightly dramatic, but you all know who you’re dealing with here. However, I am starting to realize how highly this is affecting not only me, but the people around me, AND the people I am saying “yes” to over and over again.

I am the type of person that can get so easily caught up in the billions of things she has to do that at one point finally just crashes. I thrive on a busy schedule and much prefer to be doing a billion things and have a never-ending to-do list in my agenda. Free time honestly scares me a bit because I’ll be honest with myself, unless I have planned out what I have to get done, nothing will get done, and then the stressed and flustered cycle continues. I know what you’re thinking: “we get it, you’re busy…so what?”

I started a little tradition with myself my junior year of high school back when I started this lil piece of the web in which every start of the month I look back and find one “good” adjective and one “bad” adjective to describe how I feel I performed as a human bean the past month. This past month the only word I could come up with was BUSY. I honestly didn’t even know whether to include it in the good or bad and became super concerned as to how I was spending my time. Not that anything I was doing was things I regret doing whatsoever, instead I was just finding myself fueling up with business instead of taking the chance to breathe at times. I wasn’t even doing things that I was necessarily proud of or that made me happy. My creativity levels were at an all-time high. But my brain was a constant battle of “omg-ally-you-need-to-do-this-like-right-now-immediately” and “omg-ally-for-the-love-of-god-why-are-you-doing-nothing” and also “omg-ally-please-nap” (mainly that last one.) 

& here we reached the peak of my people pleasing busy achieving problems: when you continuously are trying to do things for others, there comes a point in which you have done so little to get your own shiz done that you become almost detrimental to yourself and the people you are trying to HELP. Aka the literal OPPOSITE of what you put yourself into this situation to do in the first place. Funny how that works. Ya walk in with good intentions to make everyone happy and sprint out 4 hours later than you planned, looking dishelved, probably dehydrated, and now realizing your “free evening” you thought you had was filled with smaller tasks of things you probably didn’t even NEED to be doing. But something along the lines of “sure no problem!” slipped your mouth and the gratification of saying yes to something, aka crack for people pleasers, determined your plans for the night instead. You also get super frustrated because you want to be doing fourteen billion different things but refuse to excetue them unless they’re perfect an so they just never end up happening which frustrates you even more (oh, idk, this blog post included?!) Sound familiar? To most of you, probably. Don’t I sound like a blast and a half to be around?!! Ha, hence why this is being written.

After finishing up Rock Chalk Revue about a week ago, I’ve gained a majority of my free time back and didn’t realize how much of it I was using while running the show. It’s been less than a week, but myself, and multiple people close to me, have realized how big of a difference I have had in my priorities and my emotions. Realizing that, sure, I’m probably always going to be someone that thrives on being busy is one thing. But understanding WHAT I want to be putting my busy energy into and WHY I’m doing it is entirely another.

To be quite honest with you all, nothing is more exhausting than feeling like you’ve been trying to get your shiz together for YEARS. It’s almost like life lately has just been one big oh if I get x y and z completed THEN I will be this super cool shining star that can wear dresses and tennis shoes in the middle of the street like I spend hours staring at on my Pinterest feed every night. Realizing that I will NEVER have my shiz together is something I’ve accomplished this past week. Realizing that no matter how many positions I hold, how many meetings I can fit into my schedule, or how many trends I can manage to keep up with will never make me feel accomplished finally settled in.

I found myself with my best friend the other day and both of us were talking about how good it felt to be able to just be so content doing NOTHING together and I couldn’t thank her enough for that comment. We had both made time in our schedules to spend time doing absolutely nothing and I can vouch for the fact that both of us were happier than we had been in a LONG (and busy) time. THAT’S where i want to be shoving that energy. I don’t want to stop saying “no” completely, that will never happen. But I DO want to start saying “yes” to the things that make me happy. Yes to taking time to write every day and express emotion. Yes to talking things out and having real and genuine conversations with human beans I care about. Yes to doing things for others, but only if I have done a mental check to see if that not only fits in my physical time schedule but my mental sanity schedule as well, instead of just saying yes for the sake of it, especially if there was someone that could’ve done the job better.

A few ground rules and reminders I’m setting for myself and all of you out there as well: you are NOT an unlimited resource, if your yes for something is anything LESS than crazy enthusiastic if it is something you don’t HAVE to do…maybe it should be a no, SAYING NO DOESN’T MAKE YOU A MEAN PERSON! THIS IS A BIG ONE FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME WHO ARE TERRIFIED OF BEING MEAN! and last but not least, not being able to do everything doesn’t make you any less of an achieving goal getting superwoman. In fact, being able to recognize when you should say no is actually hella strong and very superwoman like within itself.

Oh hey there, multiple rambly paragraphs later! Sup! Did you make it through that alive? Did you at least grab a snack for the read once you got a sentence in and realized it was one of Ally’s never-ending word vomits? Let’s hope. Well, that’s a wrap for tonight. It’s 8:35 pm on a Friday night and the newest episode of Riverdale and my bed await. Don’t forget: let’s practice making intentional choices on where you put your time, energy, and attention to where it will feel meaningful to YOU.

& as always, until next time, xoxo, Ally

 

I don’t think I will ever leave the house on a gameday without my denim jacket, like, ever. My go-to one is actually my MOM’S from when she was in college, which makes it ten times more fun for me to wear! But really, denim seems to be my go-to staple that I keep adding more and more of to my closet, and I keep finding new pieces I just have to have! The idea for this post actually came from the last gameday when my friend Grace (pictured above) and I were getting ready to go out and realized we were both head to toe in denim and absolutely neither of us was mad about it…denim for days ladies!!! I’ve rounded up a few of my current denim pieces I am lusting over down below:

Ruffle Crop Jeans  / Red Stripe Pant  / Side Tie Blouse(currently UNDER $30!!!)/ Denim Long Sleeve Wrap  / Ruffle Dress

Brb, buying all of them!!!! Until next time, xoxo, Ally