Feedback is a gift...if you listen hard enough

Confession time: I have an Insta account that's just for fun, just for me to put stuff out there that I love, so that's mostly images from a shoe calendar, by Workman Publishing, given to me by my Sister last Christmas. Images of shoes dominate my Insta squares, plus a few baking disasters (all my own), my dog and the occasional craft stuff. Please don't go and look at it unless you like that kind of thing.

Feedback on Insta (or the Gram - honestly that's what some people call it) is usually benign unless you're a global star and then it can be a free for all that's almost heading towards Twitter levels of unpleasantness. So for me it's a gentle space, people put things out there that they like, sometimes things they don't like and often the worst that happens is an unfollow. Here's where I got my feedback.

Back at the start of the month the shoe of the day was a handwoven wicker wedge with a curled vamp and a circular heel; it didn't do it for me. My caption goes along the lines of Tuesday's being tricky enough without the calendar throwing me off balance with wicker shoes, not ones I'll be investing in. I generally try and find the @ for the creator, if not I # because that's the done thing. Not the worst comment ever but certainly not glowing.

Yesterday a comment popped up from the designer, very nice comment actually considering I hadn't been that enthusiastic about her shoe design. With a little smiley face she said she'd like to show me how her shoe is a shoe and then asked if I'd had a shoe featured.

Feedback. Hit me like a good bit of feedback should.

No, of course I haven't got a shoe design featured. I just offer my shoe lover's opinion on other people's hard work and creativity. Damn. I've spent time mulling it over, should I never say anything negative? No, that's not right. Should I couch my views differently? Possibly. Should I appreciate the talent that got this particular shoe design chosen? Yes.

It's not easy to create something. It's easy to criticise.

How you comment, how you engage, how you offer opinion all matters, it matters not just to the person you're giving your thoughts to but it should matter to you. We were all told a variation of "you've got one mouth and two ears for a reason" or "think before you speak" etc when we were kids, what happens to us as adults that we somehow forget that or we think what we have to say is more important than the need to be thoughtful? Most of us will have seen the type image of "If you can be anything, be kind", well that's all part of it too.

Back to my shoe calendar, I can't promise to like every shoe that's featured but I will definitely give more thought to my comments. Thank you to that shoe designer who gave me the gentlest nudge with her feedback, whether she meant it that way or not, I listened hard. Now I'm off to see what today's offering is and will keep this feedback in mind.