I actively avoided Pinterest for a loooonnng time. I was afraid of being sucked in. I had so many friends whose conversations were slowly taken over by "Oh, I saw on Pinterest ..."
DIY projects. New hairstyles. Wedding bouquet ideas. They all came from Pinterest.
I was a good girl. I stayed away. One major time waster – Facebook – was quite enough for me, thank you very much.
But I could see the value of it. One location where you could collect all the things you were interested in, amassing a virtually unlimited assortment of recipes, reading lists, interior design ideas and photographs.
And so tonight when I decided I needed to start building a list of healthier recipes, Pinterest seemed like the natural destination. I would finally follow the crowd.
It was a short-lived decision.
I wasn't on Pinterest more than a few minutes before I was feeling overwhelmed. So many pictures, so many projects, so much to read and look at! Because I started my Pinterest through my Facebook, Pinterest obligingly went ahead and followed 189 boards for me.
...
189 BOARDS!
A few seconds of clicking set me down a path to what I hoped would be more manageable.
Unfollow. Unfollow. Unfollow.
Where is the "unfollow everything" button?! I found myself wondering frantically.
In the midst of unfollowing, I couldn't stop myself from pausing to click and browse through a few boards. You'll remind yourself how useful and fun this could be, and you won't feel so overwhelmed, I reassured myself.
But every friend had multiple boards, and every board had multiple pins, and many pins had multiple pictures ... agghhhghh!
Deactivate account.
Pinterest begged me to stay. But I was determined.
Deactivating kicked me back to the Pinterest homepage, where I was greeted with the tagline
A few (million) of your favorite things.
Yup. That was the problem.
I like a feeling of completion in my life. It's why I make to do lists from which I can cross off finished tasks. On Pinterest I don't think I would ever, ever feel a sense of completion. There would always be more pins I hadn't looked at, more ideas I hadn't considered, a few more (million) favorite things to pin.
I couldn't do it.
I'm thinking about going old school Pinterest. Where are my scissors and glue ...
