Your Life Doesn’t Need a Press Release. The Art of Keeping Things for Yourself

Lately, I’ve been thinking about privacy…

Not in the data-breach, password-protected sense. In the personal sense.

Specifically, how quickly we’ve normalized sharing every aspect of our lives online. A new relationship, a new job, a move, a breakup, a milestone, a struggle, an opinion, a feeling... Somewhere along the way, documenting our lives stopped being something we chose to do and started feeling like something we were expected to do. And I’m not convinced that’s a good thing.

I also realize I’m hardly the first person to write about privacy. The internet seems to rediscover it every six months, usually accompanied by some variation of “bring back mystery.”

But I don’t think this is really about mystery.

It’s about whether we’ve become uncomfortable with the idea that some parts of life don’t need an audience.

Maybe the reason this conversation keeps resurfacing is because so many of us feel the pressure to share more than we actually want to?

We know something feels off.

We just haven’t quite figured out where the line is anymore…

I’ve also started to wonder whether we overestimate how much other people care.

Not in a depressing way. In a freeing way.

Most people are busy thinking about their own lives, their own problems, their own relationships, and their own next move.

8.3 billion people…

They’re not sitting around waiting for updates on ours.

And honestly? That’s kind of comforting.

It means we’re allowed to keep things to ourselves.

It means not every milestone requires an announcement.

It means we can stop treating our lives like they’re public property.

A lot of people justify sharing more by saying it’s part of the job. “I’m a creator, I should share”. And maybe for some people it is. But I think we’ve lost sight of the difference between sharing something and sharing everything.

You can have an online presence without turning your entire life into content. You can share your work without sharing every struggle. You can let people get to know you without giving them access to every corner of your life.

Those things aren’t mutually exclusive, even if the internet sometimes makes it feel that way.

I can write about fashion without showing every corner of my home. I can share what I’m buying without explaining every financial decision I’ve ever made. I can post a beautiful dinner without providing a complete emotional debrief of my day.

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing authenticity with access. We decided that if someone wasn’t sharing everything, they must be hiding something. That if they weren’t posting life updates in real time, they weren’t being transparent. That if they maintained any level of privacy, they were somehow less authentic.

I don’t think that’s true at all.

In fact, some of the most authentic people I know are also some of the most private. They don’t announce every goal before they’ve started working toward it. They don’t turn every challenge into content. They don’t provide running commentary on every chapter of their lives. They just live. And when they have something they genuinely want to share, they share it because they want to, not because they feel obligated.

I think about this a lot when it comes to fashion.

Even fashion has become over-explained. Every purchase needs a justification. Every outfit needs a breakdown. Every handbag requires a cost-per-wear analysis. Every item comes with a Q&A session.

Why did you buy it? Was it worth it? Would you buy it again? Do you recommend it? Can you compare it to three similar options?

Sometimes I think we’ve forgotten that people are allowed to like things.

Not every blazer requires a business case. Not every purchase needs supporting documentation. Sometimes the answer is simply: I loved it.

The women whose style I admire most rarely explain everything. They have taste. They have a point of view. They make choices. And they don’t feel the need to defend every single one.

The same principle applies to life.

One thing that has always fascinated me about social media is how often people say, “Remember, what you see online isn’t real.”

I actually disagree. Most of it is real.

The trip happened. The outfit existed. The flowers were purchased. The dinner was eaten.

The problem isn’t that it’s fake. The problem is that it’s incomplete.

Every person you follow has worries, challenges, bad days, frustrations, difficult conversations, and moments of uncertainty that you’ll never see. That’s normal. That’s life.

I’m no different.

My life isn’t a continuous stream of nice outfits, good coffee, and aesthetically pleasing corners of Toronto. There are stressful days, difficult conversations, moments of self-doubt, and plenty of things that don’t go according to plan.

I just don’t feel the need to share all of them.

As a creative person, I enjoy sharing beautiful things. Pretty moments. Things that inspire me. Things that make me smile.

In many ways, my social media is a highlight reel, but not in the way people usually mean it. It’s less about showing a perfect life and more about collecting moments I want to remember.

It’s a positive feed of my life.

Something I can scroll back through and think, “Wow, life is actually pretty good.”

Because despite all the stressful moments, there were also great outfits, memorable dinners, beautiful trips, fresh flowers, and afternoons spent with people I love.

That’s my approach to social media.

In fact, I looooove creeping my own page.

Not because I’m pretending the difficult moments don’t exist.

But because I don’t think everything needs an audience.

Lately, it feels like we’ve swung from one extreme to another. Social media used to reward perfection. Now it rewards vulnerability. The more personal the confession, the better. The more emotional the story, the better. The more raw the post, the better.

And while I appreciate honesty, I’ve never understood the idea that every difficult experience needs to be processed publicly.

When something hard happens in my life, my first instinct isn’t to post about it. It’s to call my husband. Or text a friend. Or talk to someone I trust. Maybe even a therapist, who, for the record, is significantly more qualified than Instagram Stories.

I already have people for that.

Sometimes I wonder if we share things before we’re ready because we’re looking for certainty.

A new relationship feels more real once it’s posted.

A new job feels more official once it’s announced.

A goal feels more legitimate once other people know about it.

I’ve done it too.

But some of the happiest periods of my life have been the ones I spent actually living instead of narrating.

I don’t need hundreds of strangers checking in on me. I don’t need sympathy from people I’ve never met. And I certainly don’t need to prove my authenticity by sharing every difficult thing I’m going through.

When I post online, I focus on things I find beautiful, interesting, inspiring, or worth talking about. That’s not because my life is perfect. It’s because that’s what I enjoy sharing.

There’s a difference.

Choosing to share positive things doesn’t mean difficult things don’t exist. Choosing privacy doesn’t mean you’re being dishonest. It just means you’ve decided not everything belongs online.

In fact, the older I get, the more protective I become of the things that matter most to me.

Not because they’re secret.

Because they’re valuable.

I’ve started to realize that the things I cherish most aren’t necessarily the things I want to share immediately.

Sometimes they’re the things I want to sit with.

Enjoy.

Protect.

Experience fully before inviting everyone else into them.

Not everything needs to be announced. Not everything needs to be explained. Not everything needs to be shared while it’s happening.

Some things are better experienced first and discussed later. Some things belong to your closest friends and family. And some things can simply belong to you.

In a culture that encourages constant sharing, privacy feels almost rebellious. Not because it’s secretive, but because it’s intentional.

And I think that’s something we’ve lost: the ability to keep a few things for ourselves without feeling guilty about it.

Your life doesn’t need a press release.

:)