Clutter is not always things

I had a pretty enlightening moment the other day. It may sound like a small thing, and it probably is, but for me it was a bit of a relief.

I have a tendency to follow friends and acquaintances on Instagram even if I don’t like to look at their content. It’s this sort of guilt trip, you know, that fear of disappointing them, so I keep following and just kind of scroll away. Yes, I know, I’m insane.

The worst part is that Instagram doesn’t make it easy for you to see who is following you back or not. From the app itself, I mean. There are other ways. And I decided “ok, I’ll keep following those who follow me (because guilt), but I need to clean up”.

This is something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, but obviously it’s not desperately important. Or relevant, even. But when I think about the time I spend scrolling through stuff that doesn’t interest me, it does add up. And gets kind of annoying. So finally I did something about it.

I downloaded an app that breaks down your Instagram account into all sorts of filters, but most importantly, it shows me people who I am following but are not following me back. Bingo!

And, omg, it was so good. Yes, I did find out that a bunch of people who I know personally do not follow me back. And that’s ok. They don’t need to. But now I’m “released” from following them too. No guilt. No stress.

There are always things that needs to be cleaned up in our lives. Sometimes it’s material possessions, sometimes it’s friends, sometimes it’s work, sometimes it’s habits. But by cleaning up we turn mess/stress into openness, peace, or even a bit of extra time to spend with the people you love.

I’m not the best at that. I tend to hold on to things and worry too much about other people’s feelings. But then again, I’m a work in progress. And that means that I’ll always be cleaning up some parts of me, and making room for better things. Over and over again. Instagram is just the beginning.