Where Is the Love?

Hey, everyone. It’s been one heck of a Monday over here. I hope your week is off to a good start 🙂 I’m sitting here typing as my muscles quiver from the hardcore BodyPump class that I took today. I finally upped my weights back to where I was before I stopped going, and I’m feeling it for sure. No pain, no gain, right?

Half of the workday didn’t even feel like work because we were unpacking from the office move and working through connectivity issues. You know, the usual corporate mumbo jumbo. One thing that made my day much more pleasant was reading through all of your kind words from my last post. If there’s one thing I absolutely love about the blog world, it’s the sense of community and support that you can get from people whom you’ve (mostly) never even met. I definitely felt the love and sincerely thank you all for reassuring me that I could (and will!)  rock my first race…even if it’s at a snail’s pace 😉

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Speaking of blog love, today’s post is going to be a tiny bit of a rant, so if you’re not in the mood, I’ll have something more uplifting tomorrow…promise. Thankfully *knock on wood* I haven’t really experienced this in my tiny corner of the blog world, but it bothers me nonetheless. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been seeing a lot more snarky comments on other blogs recently.

I’m not talking about the occasional “Your blog sucks” and other glaringly obvious downer comments made by “anonymous” users. These are comments by everyday readers who don’t post anonymously. I love constructive criticism and feedback as well as helpful suggestions, but there’s a fine line between that and just being a bit .

Examples:

-I can’t believe you didn’t know ________! Everybody else knows that. – vs – You’ve been missing out! Isn’t it awesome?
-Did you seriously just post about that? What a waste of a read. – vs –  Just don’t reply.
-You really need to be eating more/exercising less/resting more/etc. – vs – That workout plan looks tough! How are you planning on fueling?
-You need to be doing _____. That’s obviously what you’re doing wrong. – vs – _____ has worked well for me in the past/ I had a friend who tried ________.

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Maybe I’m huffing about nothing, but these kinds of comments really bother me. First, even in the world of healthy living blogs, nobody knows everything there is to know about what is healthy. Hell, even professionals are constantly arguing about this. This is one thing that I’ve absolutely loved about reading these blogs! I’ve learned about so many different foods, workouts, and plans that I had never known. Before I started reading some of these blogs, the only association I had with kale was a boy I knew in high school with the funny name. I sure did not know it was a super awesome vegetable. That is the beauty of the blogging community: we get to learn from each others experiences what we could not possibly learn all on our own.

Second, the thing with blogs is this, you get to choose what you want to read. I don’t always like every single post from all of the blogs that I read, so I move on and come back for the next post. Whatever was written was probably helpful or relevant to someone else out there; I just wasn’t diggin it, and that’s not the blogger’s fault.

Third, this one could be a real slippery slope. I read a ton of blogs from people who overcame/are overcoming eating disorders, have issues with food, and any combination of these. Never having had an eating disorder, I don’t know a whole lot about them. From what I’ve read, however, there are certain topics that can easily “trigger” bad habits to return. Now, I’m not saying to walk around on eggshells whenever a subject might be touchy, but just think about it. Also, lots of bloggers don’t post everything they consume (that’s pretty boring). Everyone knows their own body best, so let them or their medical professionals decide what’s best.

The last example is kind of a combo of the above. Even specialists have to consult with other specialists to get a diagnosis right sometimes. I’m glad that worked so awesome for you! It might or might not work for someone else.

So basically, let’s just show some love where you want to give it, offer constructive criticism/advice, or move on with your life. You don’t have to shoot rainbows and butterflies out of your ass. We’re all part of this community for a reason, so let’s make it stronger by offering good feedback. -End rant-

I know that everyone won’t agree with what I say, so I’d honestly love to get a dialogue going with your views on the subject 🙂

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On to brighter pastures…

My friend recently came back from an extended stay in Korea, and brought back the most amazing hand cream in the world. While it’s an amazing moisturizer and all, I wanted to share with you the back of the tub.

I love Korea, am of Korean heritage, and think their beauty products are arguably some of the best in the world, but the descriptions and instructions always crack me up. The translations are always so awkward and probably involve a lot of thesaurus use, so it always gives me and my Korean friends a good laugh. The funniest are usually on pieces of cute stationary and other student school supplies, but this one is the most recent I’ve seen. I sure hope that my hands aren’t crumbly, but at least I know that this hand cream will “impart moist and shiny features” to them just in case.

As I was writing this post, Mochi decided to be extra needy and cuddly by wedging himself under my arm. This picture of him was too cute not to post despite the sleep-deprived, no-makeup fur mommy hogging up all the space.

Back with a bright and cheery post tomorrow. Good night!