I just unsubscribed from about half of the blogs I've read regularly for the past year or two.
I'm a pretty self-confident woman. I make snap decisions, I trust my instincts, and I am not often wrong. (Yep, I said that out loud.) I've got a lot of common sense (I think), I generally understand how the world works, I'm not a worrier, I like to be in charge and I'm good at it. (I also have a horrible time depending on God instead of my own alleged self-sufficiency, but that's another post for another time.)
Over the past few weeks, however, I've found myself either paralyzed by indecision or frantic over a lack of clear-cut direction. It popped up first while I was trying to plan meals for the month: I need meat, but good meat costs a lot, but it's good to support local and organic farmers, but I don't want to spend the money, but we need meat. In the end, I gave up and walked away from my plan, and we went meatless twice last week. I simply could not decide which was more important: to stick with my grocery budget (as the frugal-mommy blogs would have) or to spend willingly for high-quality nourishment (as the Nourishing-Traditions-following blogs would have).
Twice last week I had conversations with people in which I thought I heartily agreed with what they were saying, only to find out not long afterwards that my husband held completely opposite viewpoints -- and, of course, his reasoning made just as much sense as the views I'd heard first. Quite frankly, it made me feel a little ill, to be suddenly so unsure of what was "right" (or, more appropriately, right for me, as I'm not talking about matters of concrete right- or wrong-ness). I believe whole-heartedly in discussing important issues with my husband and submitting to his leadership, but what happens (as it did happen, twice) when I'm talking with someone, or reading a blog, about something we haven't discussed, and it seems natural to me to agree with that person? I'd love to be able to prepare for every conceivable encounter with every conceivable topic, but I suspect that that's an unrealistic goal. All at once, my previously-trustworthy instincts don't seem so trustworthy.
In sharing this with Isaac, he wondered if the sheer number of blogs out there has caused us ("us" being "people who read anything on the internet") to lose the ability to think critically about what we're reading (and hearing). This isn't college English class, where we spent weeks on one piece of literature, dissecting it for all its worth. Some days I might read 15 blogs in an afternoon, on all manner of topics, all suggesting that they have the correct "next step" in their preferred line of blogging, be that the next educational toddler activity or the next way to pray with gratitude or the next "real food" change to adopt in the kitchen.
For a brief moment, after that conversation, I nearly considered ending this blog once and for all. If my complaint is that there are too many voices on the internet, why should I add my own to the mix? But I realized, upon further consideration, that the fact that there are millions of blogs in existence is not my problem. Any given person is entitled to send their voice into the world, just the same as I am.
The problem is that I'm listening to too many of them. I don't need six different "toddler activities" blogs; I'll never do that many activities anyway, and they only make me feel like a failure for not spending more time cutting things out of felt. I don't need three different Christian living blogs; the ones I have been reading are starting to get repetitive and I'm no longer getting anything out of them. I don't even know how many different "real food" blogs I was following, but it was too many, too overwhelming. Writing this paragraph, I'm a little shocked at myself: I didn't realize it was that many, or how much time I wasted reading blogs, or how addicting it is to keep up with all of them, or just how many voices were competing for my lifestyle allegiance.
And so I have pared down my Google Reader list. I haven't abandoned it altogether; a few of these blogs continue to be informative and helpful (or, in the case of one, entertaining) at the present time. But as I make choices for myself, my children, and my family, I must call upon that gift of discernment and be cautious in what and whom I read.
I'm a pretty self-confident woman. I make snap decisions, I trust my instincts, and I am not often wrong. (Yep, I said that out loud.) I've got a lot of common sense (I think), I generally understand how the world works, I'm not a worrier, I like to be in charge and I'm good at it. (I also have a horrible time depending on God instead of my own alleged self-sufficiency, but that's another post for another time.)
Over the past few weeks, however, I've found myself either paralyzed by indecision or frantic over a lack of clear-cut direction. It popped up first while I was trying to plan meals for the month: I need meat, but good meat costs a lot, but it's good to support local and organic farmers, but I don't want to spend the money, but we need meat. In the end, I gave up and walked away from my plan, and we went meatless twice last week. I simply could not decide which was more important: to stick with my grocery budget (as the frugal-mommy blogs would have) or to spend willingly for high-quality nourishment (as the Nourishing-Traditions-following blogs would have).
Twice last week I had conversations with people in which I thought I heartily agreed with what they were saying, only to find out not long afterwards that my husband held completely opposite viewpoints -- and, of course, his reasoning made just as much sense as the views I'd heard first. Quite frankly, it made me feel a little ill, to be suddenly so unsure of what was "right" (or, more appropriately, right for me, as I'm not talking about matters of concrete right- or wrong-ness). I believe whole-heartedly in discussing important issues with my husband and submitting to his leadership, but what happens (as it did happen, twice) when I'm talking with someone, or reading a blog, about something we haven't discussed, and it seems natural to me to agree with that person? I'd love to be able to prepare for every conceivable encounter with every conceivable topic, but I suspect that that's an unrealistic goal. All at once, my previously-trustworthy instincts don't seem so trustworthy.
In sharing this with Isaac, he wondered if the sheer number of blogs out there has caused us ("us" being "people who read anything on the internet") to lose the ability to think critically about what we're reading (and hearing). This isn't college English class, where we spent weeks on one piece of literature, dissecting it for all its worth. Some days I might read 15 blogs in an afternoon, on all manner of topics, all suggesting that they have the correct "next step" in their preferred line of blogging, be that the next educational toddler activity or the next way to pray with gratitude or the next "real food" change to adopt in the kitchen.
For a brief moment, after that conversation, I nearly considered ending this blog once and for all. If my complaint is that there are too many voices on the internet, why should I add my own to the mix? But I realized, upon further consideration, that the fact that there are millions of blogs in existence is not my problem. Any given person is entitled to send their voice into the world, just the same as I am.
The problem is that I'm listening to too many of them. I don't need six different "toddler activities" blogs; I'll never do that many activities anyway, and they only make me feel like a failure for not spending more time cutting things out of felt. I don't need three different Christian living blogs; the ones I have been reading are starting to get repetitive and I'm no longer getting anything out of them. I don't even know how many different "real food" blogs I was following, but it was too many, too overwhelming. Writing this paragraph, I'm a little shocked at myself: I didn't realize it was that many, or how much time I wasted reading blogs, or how addicting it is to keep up with all of them, or just how many voices were competing for my lifestyle allegiance.
And so I have pared down my Google Reader list. I haven't abandoned it altogether; a few of these blogs continue to be informative and helpful (or, in the case of one, entertaining) at the present time. But as I make choices for myself, my children, and my family, I must call upon that gift of discernment and be cautious in what and whom I read.
Amen. I can't tell you how many voices I have haunting me from past parenting books/blogs/etc. And the whole "natural" thing...I can't even begin. The guilt, the feeling of failure and the lack of contentment caused by blogs is kind of out of control. Wonderful post.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Elizabeth! More and more I find myself convinced that if every mama is simply consistent within her own house, everything will (more or less) be fine. It's when we try to run down too many paths at once that we all end up guilty and failing and discontent and chaotic!
ReplyDeleteyou and the boys should hunt for squirrels or other pesky wildlife in your yard, then you get activities and meat, and you save money and you save on pests ;) hehe (aren't I helpful at 3 AM!)
ReplyDelete