When I started creating content, I never planned on it being a career for me. Heck, it was originally something to save me from being a workaholic. I worked 14 hours days often 7 days a week and needed something, ANYTHING in my life that wasn’t about software. Instagram became my 30 minutes a day of me time. I didn’t plan it. I never chased likes. It was literally just something to do that wasn’t work.
When I started growing online, it didn’t make sense- to me or frankly a lot of people. Instantly people hated me. Instantly I had people ripping me apart, which was easy because I never hid my flaws. My account was never curated - this is/was my very messy, very real life.
When opportunities came, supposed friends left. When I became competition, I also became the enemy. Soon people were talking behind my back in secret chat communities I didn’t even know existed. Someone would always tell me; I always wished they hadn’t. I never called them out; I’m not here to hurt people.
I’ve felt isolated and alone in a community I once joined solely for a sense of belonging. So, I went searching for a new tribes to join. With it I unintentionally gained followers and frankly new enemies. It’s been painful. I never found a home, though I did meet a few really good souls.
You can spend every single day trying your best to be kind, to love and to help others feel like they belong. You still might feel alone. That might be your challenge; sometimes destiny just has other plans. 2020 was the year I accepted that this was a very lonely profession, and there was nothing I could do to change that. Walking away from the career wouldn’t erase the ways in which being a creator has changed me. It’s probably the hardest thing I, a natural extrovert, have had to learn in my life.
Im adapting. I refuse to lose the joy I get when I create. I invest more time in those who know me and understand the only person I have ever been competitive against is myself. I will continue to use whatever power I have to elevate the good in the world.
Life is beautiful. It is also messy and confusing and hard. You have to open your arms to all of it, to truly live.
