This post is a collaboration with Auto Europe

Summer and holidays – the time when you work on memories that will cheer you up during the dark winter. Summers is just fantastic; Sunny, warm, late nights, relaxing and stress free.

Really? Not to me, it’s not stressless for me. I feel stressed about all the things I want to do in the summer. The list is long, but the time is short. Already in May/June, I begin to stress about the summer’s soon over. Every weekend and every free time is fully booked in my schedule. Because of that, it’s hard to relax; there’s too many must do’s, even if you’re off from work. The biggest of my must do’s right now are social media. In the photo industry, I want to be seen as a photographer, I want to show what I do to open up for possibilities. It’s also nice to get confirmation whether you are on the right track and whether people like what I do or not.

Busy summer

How does social media make us feel? There’s so many people commenting that I live the life all the time – and that’s how I make it look like on social media. I’ve had an amazing summer! It’s been absolutely wonderful! But at the same time, the whole truth doesn’t come through images on Instagram. Christine and I have talked a lot about never having time to sit down and just chill. There’s always something to do; plan where to sail next, check the weather, read about ports, check the weather again, fix something on the boat, sail in hard winds and be drenched by waves for several hours a day. My summer has not been as chill as it seems on Instagram. And I’m not out sailing every day, I just want to share all the amazing moments I manage to capture. I’ve actually worked almost 24/7 all of July – it’s been a busy summer.

Instagram is a fantasy world

I compare myself to a lot of accounts I follow on Instagram. That’s why the list of things I want to do is so long. And the list of how I want to look, how I want to be, what I want to learn, what I already want to be good at etc, etc. But that’s not possible! I can’t be all billions of people at the same time. I only have time to be me, why should I feel bad about not being happy with myself? Do you recognize yourself? Instagram is a fantasy world, it’s not reality. Even though we know that very well, it’s still so hard to understand it. Also, how can social media take up so much time of one’s life? There’s always a thousand things I should do, but sometimes it’s so hard to get started and instead I get stuck on my phone for ages. Imagine if social media were not available, then it would be possible to have time for all those thousand things! But in the same time – how sad – it’s a great source of inspiration and I develop my photography by looking at a lot of images. I want to be seen in social media to share my photos and try to capture an interest from companies which can benefit work or other opportunities. At the same time, I do not want to be seen because of how it makes me feel, and knowing that I can cause others to feel bad.

Auto Europe has made a survey this summer about how the average Swedish person spend their holidays. We put 3.2 hours a day on our mobile devices. 3.2 hours! Where do we manage to find all of that time? Why do we have to look at everyone else’s holidays when we should just enjoy our own? And why do we have such a great need to show everyone else how great time we have?

I’d planned to read a lot of books this summer. I have probably read two pages in one of them… Maybe it’s time to turn off social media for a while and start focusing on myself, then it would be easier to find time reading books. When we traveled in South America we rarely had wifi. It was so nice! When I got back home, I tried to stay away from the phone as much as I could, but unfortunately I’m totally dependent on my phone today.

Can you recognize yourself? How does social media makes you feel?

This post is a collaboration with Auto Europe