Patsy’s great idea

In our Wonderful Work Book group down here in Devon, we were chatting about social media. Good sides and not so good.

We all recognise how incredibly useful online networking can be, but there are the downsides – especially the effects of spending too much time comparing ourselves with other people and their apparently perfect lives.

How thin or beautiful do we have to be to measure up? Are we really as happy as everyone else is, out with our friends, having fun, going places? Or in a lovely home, eating wonderful food we’ve just made?

It can be so easy to slip into an unhappy sense of comparison, feeling we aren’t succeeding in almost every part of our life. And the pressure is subtle but relentless, almost every hour of the waking day. Be more, have more, look better.

Then Patsy shared with us that she had recently removed about 100 accounts from her Instagram feed – which she loves by the way- just by asking herself

Does it help me? Does it inspire me? Does it make me smile?

If it didn’t tick one of those boxes, she happily deleted it.

I don’t have an Instagram account myself, but I think it’s a great way to look at how I spend my time, especially online. In fact, it’s a brilliant way of looking at most of my activities. What could I cut down on or just get rid of in my life if I just considered those 3 things? And how would that feel?