THE PROBLEM WITH PINTEREST

If you've read my blog for any length of time, then you must know that I ♥ Pinterest.  I really do.  I love crafts, cooking and parties and am highly visual, so seeing all the pretty pictures in one place is such a thrill for me.  I regularly think that I could make almost anything that there is a tutorial for.  (I am over-confident and foolish like that.)

However, as I was scrolling through it on my phone before drifting off to sleep, with John asking, "Why don't you just go to sleep?", it hit me that Pinterest, when used incorrectly, can cause problems in my head.  Now, I know that this is not a new revelation or an original one by any stretch of imagination, but it was new to me in the way it hit me.

Pinterest creates expectations for myself that I be good at everything and accomplish everything.

I am an achiever personality type - I always have been.  I want to get things done, and often I have just enough competitiveness to want to do them better than anybody else.  Which is psycho.  I get that.  The problem with Pinterest for me is that it feeds that monster on the inside.

I see parties on there that are done to the nines by professionals and then photographed by professionals, and I expect and want to be able to do something at that level.  Just because I could.  Sometimes without asking the question of whether I should.  I see all the cutest fall outfits imaginable being modeled by people who have never thought of having children, and it makes me really sad about not buying clothes this year and about the fact that I suck at moderation.

I see pins for all-natural house-cleaning, encouraging me to make all of my own cleaning products and insinuating that I am somehow failing when I buy "off the rack" supplies.  I see lavish ceremonies for my children that celebrate their every accomplishment or promotion or special moment.  I see rooms, out of magazines, and now that I read some of the blogs of the women that have their rooms pictured, I understand what all goes into that image of perfection.  It is smoke and mirrors.  Beautiful and enticing, but still smoke and mirrors.

I see pins that make "beachy waves" of hair look effortless, and I die a little inside that I have never learned how to use a curling iron.  True story.  I see all these super quick exercises I could do At-Home and In 5 Minutes to cure all jiggling forever, and I think of all the five minutes I waste doing stuff like looking at Pinterest.  Then, there are the 10 ways to love my husband better, the truly inspirational quotes and scripture done in perfect graphic design and the pin with the Hundreds of healthy lunch ideas that don't involve sandwiches, finally.  As if there is something bad about sandwiches, a lunch staple around here.

And, since I am enjoying this little rant, I will continue a while longer on a different path - the things written underneath pins often drive me crazy.  I, like most people I know, often pin something and leave whatever else someone has written underneath it.  If I want it for something specifically, I will write that, but often it is easier to just hit repin and categorize it to the right board.  What particularly irks me (totally my problem - also a total first world problem) is when pins say stuff instructing me what to do, like "Pin now, read later" or "You will regret not pinning this when this _____ happens to you" or "You will be so glad you did this."  It also cracks me up when I see pins that say, "I can't believe I never thought of doing this!"  Isn't that the whole point of Pinterest - to get ideas you didn't think of?

If you write these things I'm sorry.  Like I said before, it is my problem and not yours.

Now I've gone and gotten all off-track.  The whole point of this is that sometimes I have abused Pinterest and let it abuse me, a bit.  God certainly does not have expectations that I do everything well.  He has definitely gifted me in certain areas, and I am thankful to be able to use those gifts to serve my family and hopefully other people around me and most importantly, to serve him.  However, I do not need to do everything perfectly, and I probably need to limit my time on something that can make me feel like I should.

Moral of the story is that the problem with Pinterest is really the problem inside of my heart when I let things outside of the Lord dictate how I feel about the things I am doing.  I am certainly not swearing off Pinterest, but I know I need God's help with how to view my life, my time and my energy as all His and not let myself get caught up in the stories he is writing for other people with different giftings.  People who make all of their own cleaning supplies and hate all sandwiches.