It’s been almost a year of love-hate relationship with Instagram, and I really feel like Instagram sucks nowadays. It’s already taking toll of my time and (mental) health, so I need a break. That’s it. I’m taking a hiatus from it.

I celebrated my birthday today with two work-related tasks. In the morning, I had a training session as a newbie faculty member of the University, and I had a talk for the Model United Nations club where my students invited me to talk about Foreign Policy. If we’re close, you would know that I loathe working on my birthday and I always go somewhere far away to celebrate it alone. But since it’s the pandemic, I chose to celebrate it with my family in the province.

I’m not sure if I made the right decision given the slow internet connection at home. I can’t bear the thought of showing up late to my tasks today. I was triggered. I wanted to blame someone. Here comes my mood swing again. Not good, not good.

But I was happy with how work turned out that day. That training session was so insightful and I got fairly good feedback from the speaking engagement. But I was so tired. And everytime I’m tired, I always rethink the academe.

But it’s my birthday. And I was tired. I had all the reasons to eat a lot. Which I did. Now I need to exercise. Ugh.

So yeah, I was rethinking Instagram.

Ever since the pandemic, I’ve been finding it hard to grow my account. More than all the vanity metrics, I’ve been capitalizing on Instagram to use it as part of my travel-related side hustles in the future. I feel like I did everything I could, but the time was just not right. Nobody will get inspired to travel. Nobody engages with my posts. Posting throwback content constantly just doesn’t feel right. The only Story I could post was whatever I was doing with my laptop. As much as I want to shoot some fresh content, it’s still so scary to go out.

I no longer feel the point of posting anything on Instagram. Most of the time I find myself aimlessly consuming content. It’s a waste of time. I should have been devoting my time to other more productive stuff. That’s it, I’m done.

Now, shall I set it to private mode or deactivate my account?

For now I’ll set it to private mode, uninstall the app on my phone and logout my account on my desktop. I’ve done this in the past, and I trust myself that I will be able to do it again this time.

I want to bring back my good ol’ productive, anxiety-free days. I want to pursue (travel and street) photography so bad. My website has been monetized for two years now, and how come I never focused on growing it? How come I focused on Instagram where no money comes in for every like and comment? Sometimes I really make questionable choices.

I changed my bio as well. For accountability’s sake. It’s official. Bye for now, Instagram. I’ll focus on this website this time.