Summer Blues

Lately I have been overwhelmed by, just about everything in my virtual world.

My pinterest feed--overrun with product pins.
My facebook feed--when did my friends and family disappear?
And don't forget those 3,952 unread posts in my Bloglovin feed.

Just overwhelming I tell you.

Everytime I sit down to sort it all out, I get exhausted.

And that wasn't always the case. It used to be that I would loose track of time reading blogs. Hours would melt away like seconds because I was so engrossed in what I was reading. The only way I was aware of the passing of time was that all of a sudden, I wouldn't be able to see the keyboard on my laptop because the sun had gone down and I had never turned on the room light!

But lately, it seems like all I'm reading are... advertisements.

I know there are people out there who are making BANK selling on TPT. There are people who are even full-time TPTers, as in, no longer teaching. Not sure how I feel about that since this teacher (aka ME) is technically not paying another teacher for their products... Call me silly, but if you are no longer instructing children, you are no longer a teacher. Right? Now you are in the sales business. And your product placement blog posts are now akin to a telemarketer call in the middle of dinner.

Yada yada yada, whatever. I'm not boycotting these people who have been gifted with the work ethic and business sense that I clearly have not, but it troubles me. That is all.

I've even heard some people say that all they do now is Facebook. "Why bother with a blog?" were the actual words from the person's mouth. Well, I'm assuming the words came out of their mouth while typing... When I read blogs, I'm looking for ideas, new perspectives, humbling classroom experiences, the good, bad, and ugly included. Because if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you'll notice I'm a little short on ideas as of late. That's why I need you people!

So I've been thinking and I've decided to go on a bit of a Blogger/TPT/Facebook diet. The deciding factor was when I finally put two and two together and realized that one of my absolute FAVORITE bloggers (who shall remain nameless) hasn't blogged even ONCE this summer about something not related to a product in their store. Not once. And this person posts every. single. day. I'm not against promoting one's products. I've done it before and I'm sure I'll do it again. But every post? And not even giving me something worth reading. Just "here's a product I created go buy it so I can become the next Deanna Jump."

Long story short (too late) I decided to unfollow about 75% of the blogs I follow. And many of those on the cut list were BIG NAME PEOPLE. Do I think unfollowing will make a difference in what they post? No. That's not my goal. I doubt any of those people will miss me anyway.

What is this all about?

INTEGRITY

I decided that I will no longer follow someone just for an entry to a giveaway unless I actually think I will enjoy reading their posts. Integrity. I know the main reason people participate in giveaways is to get their name out there and to reach an audience they may not have otherwise. And that's fine. But do they really want the followers number to rise but not have followers who actually read what they have to say?

I've decided I'm not going to share something on Facebook or "Like" it unless I actually do want to share it with others and genuinely LIKE it. Seems simple enough. Integrity.


The bottom line is that I've decided it's time to start blogging, selling, buying, and reading/following blogs with INTEGRITY. It's time at least for me. I don't know about anyone else... I'm realistic about my sales goals for TPT. Really, my goal is to come out even. I use my earnings on TPT to buy products from other sellers. I am not going to be a millionaire teacher.

And I'm OK with that. I'd be plenty happy with having something mildly interesting to say from time to time and having a handful of people who are semi-interested in what I have to say. Even if I only have something interesting to say once a month. Integrity.

Here's hoping my followers number doesn't do a stock market dive after I hit the "publish" button...