Performative decorating – and how to avoid its danger

In every home, there's an element of dress-for-success. We arrange our living rooms for the perfect movie night, our eat-in kitchens for the effortless gathering of friends, our bathrooms for spa-like retreats. The art of anticipating ideal moments fulfills a deep human need.

What's different lately is the sense of an audience way beyond our four walls. Perhaps it started with the big reveal at the end of home makeover shows, ordinary folks bursting through the door and dropping their jaws at their transformed environment, while all of us strangers tuning in are caught up in the excitement.

The change is apparent in the U.S. edition of Architectural Digest. The magazine has long showcased celebrity homes, but only recently do we see the stars themselves on the cover, preening as we gawk at their opulent surroundings.

There's a sense that with enough effort and good fortune, we too could exercise our star power and become similarly admired.

The force democratizing the impulse to be looked at and envied this way is the internet's ability to broadcast our interiors to millions. We're always being told about the follower count of design influencers and once we take a peek, stunned by the number of likes on individual images – and tempted to see what happens when documenting our own domestic details.

It's a dangerous path. Once we taste the thrill of being "liked" by people we don't even know, there's the added mystique of why some images are liked more and others are liked less, followed by the attempt to do more of whatever gets liked more... and inevitable disappointment when it doesn't always work.

Over time, it can lead to an almost frantic insecurity.

What was once a private dwelling becomes an awkward public stage, where moving even a vase or fluffing up a throw pillow is a test of the ego, a potentially humiliating subjection to the verdict of faceless others.

It's a sad way to live. And once we set off in this direction, it's hard to reverse the feeling of desperate escalating neediness.

Worst of all, it leads us away from our authentic selves to a place where we completely lose track of how to be happy.

Fortunately, there are ways to turn back. Here are three that I know of:

Train your senses

Get to know what delights you in old-fashioned ways: nature walks, city rambles, gallery visits, shopping expeditions. When you acquire real-world knowledge of what turns you on, you'll have the true equipment for creating interiors that are yours.

Hide your best stuff

When you style a bookcase or arrange a room in a way that finally satisfies you, why not resist the urge to snap a photo and share? It's powerful to hold back what pleases you most.

Sharing is good now and then, but restraining yourself builds confidence.

Impress yourself

That adulation you're hoping for? Instead of prying it from others, give it to yourself. Design a home that earns your own respect and affection. It's worth all the effort. And it'll feel way better than the alternative.

Until next Wednesday,

P.S. For a deep read on how digital culture can warp our ability to be ourselves, check out The Reaction Economy by William Davies, a long brilliant essay in The London Review of Books.