This is a rather personal post, with me questioning if my career choices are self-centred, by Rosa Fairfield.
Photographs by Linda Smith
This is a question I've been asking myself for a while. It started when I was about a year into this blogging biz. It sorta registered that I had a Instagram feed full of photographs of myself. It made me cringe and that paired with the way people had started treating me made me question what I was doing. Is promoting yourself and posting pictures of yourself online self-centred?
Why did I start my blog?
First and foremost I class myself as a performer. I have an acting degree and that's my main career goal and never have I for a second questioned if an acting career is self-centred, even though it's usually perceived as vain. That's because movies were my everything growing up. I was shy, an outsider and struggled to make friends. I found a comfort in being able to relate to certain characters in movies. Movies can help people and people get enjoyment from them. My desire to be part of that came from me wanting to give something back, by inspiring people, like I had been inspired.
Blogging, for me, was just another branch to that tree. Reading about people's first hand experiences, and seeing their photos, made me feel inspired and connected to the world around me. It was another opportunity for me to try to create that for others.
Do influencers have a negative influence?
Now I've explained all that. Next came the period when people started to express that influencers and bloggers were having a negative effect on people's mental health. Like I said above, I wanted to start my blog to inspire and encourage people not to basically go 'ha, ha, I'm better than you'. I thought people got enjoyment out of it and to think it was having the opposite effect made me seriously consider if I wanted to do it anymore. That is what made me really start to question if it was a selfish career choice.
Is being self-centred a bad thing?
Let's put that all aside for a second and go back to basics. If blogging has a self-centred element to it, does that make it a bad thing? I was having this conversation with someone. This question came up: Could any profession that someone enjoys be called self-centred? I guess that's an interesting notion of intention. In a way, humans by nature are a little self-centred, even when we are directly helping others, there's a tiny part of us that finds self-satisatiction in it. Then again, if you are doing something selfless grudgingly is that really any better?
I guess there has to be a balance of doing things for yourself and others. How can you help anyone else if you can't help yourself? I think it's important and healthy to build a life that you love, in order to inspire others.
Can you be both?
That brings me to my last point. Can you be both self-centred and selfless? Can you take somethings and give other things? There are lots of bloggers out their who donate to charity and raise money through various events.
Thanks for reading. I'm not sure I've really come to a conclusion on this but it's one of those opinion related topics so I guess there isn't really any right or wrong answer. What are your thoughts? Please comment bellow.
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