Social Media Sunshine

Lessons I'm learning from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest never seem to escape my wondering of how this affects us as a culture. I find it fascinating those times in history between the spurts of growth and change from one era into another. The 50's expressed conformity with perfectly coiffed hair, clean lined clothing, happy music and finishing schools for girls. But as the 60's rolled in nothing could be farther from that image. I can only imagine what their grandparents thought when they saw girls in pants, natural hair, and not shaving. The butterflies first burst from his cocoon.

As we move into a new millenium I see how we are in the middle of another burst of change. Our social lives now consist of tweeting and vlogging, blogging and posting, texting and pinning. We seem to know what's going on with everyone, even though we've may not even know everyone. At first this annoyed the hell out of me because I come from the generation of "hanging out" with people in parks, coffee shops and malls. But as I got used to reading the posts and blogs I started to connect with people I barely know off line. It’s the same effect as watching a tv show. We connect with the actors, or in all reality we're connecting with the character played by the actor, not the actor him/herself. So in essence these people you've never met before are all actors playing a roll on a screen. We connect with their kids, vacation photos, listen to their music links, watch their video's etc. We are very influenced by their posts.

A girl I met only a few times in real life posted regularly to Facebook, and I mean daily. She actually kind of annoyed me in the beginning because she reminded me of Reese Witherspoons character Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. Every post was of her smiling, running a marathon, adorable pictures of her daughter and "Awesome super day!" posts. I noticed one day her posts were gone and that she no longer was on my friend list. Minutes after I inquired with a friend of hers, she immediately sent me a message apologizing for removing me along with a sough of others from her page. She didn't think "anyone would notice". Well hell, I noticed. Behind the smiley faces online was a conflict in real life we didn't know about. I realized that I had gotten used to seeing her daughter enjoy a sandwich in the park, trying on goofy glasses at the mall and most of all her "Awesome" posts. It reminded me that I was not in an "awesome" spirit where I should be and that is why her posts annoyed me.

I told her that I read all her posts and look forward to seeing her "It's a great day" words of encouragement and that we do notice when she is not there. "A little bit of sunshine goes a long way" I said.

This inspired me to share this with you. Our words, even as trivial as they seen on a screen are very powerful. They hold a sense of magic that can stir love, hate, fear and a myriad of emotions in our hearts. People are drawn to the light, the positive, and the happy ones. They inspire us, drive us, and keep us in a state of thought reminding us to keep moving forward.

Be mindful of your words, I'm reminded of this daily. I look at my own wall to see patterns. What am I posting? Are they mostly positive, motivating and encouraging? Are they complaining, criticizing or spreading fear? This is a good indicator of where your heart is. Believe me, people notice. Spread a little word of peace, you never know whose life you will change with a kind word.

Thank you Facebook friend for reminding me to "Have a happy Monday!"

A missed lesson in Compassion & Patience?

Today as I scrolled my Facebook page I noticed a girl who made the following post:

"Craving ice cream so I went to the grocery store for some.. Only one lane open and I get stuck behind some old lady with a stocked up cart. I go to put my ice cream on the belt and all I see beside my ice cream is her diaper pads...Yup, craving is gone!! Bleck!! I dont wanna get old :(( I put my ice cream back and left.. Thats Gods sign for bc I didnt run today!!" - Anonymous

As I scroll back in the history of my life I see too that once upon a time I thought like that. It's easy to "see" only what we want. Fact is, we're ALL going to get old, end of discussion. I guess my life changing POV came when I worked in assited living with seniors. It was an amazing eye opening experience. My eyes would scan the walls of degrees, old photo's of them that looked like a previous lifetimes and some sad smiles feeling sad they can't scuba dive anymore. Seniors are amazing human beings with stories Hollywood could use to make epic movies from.

Never fight aging, embrace it. Aging is wisdom, fine tuning our thoughts, changing our reactions to life with the ever changing POV. I know someday she will see that and let it go.

As I made my rebuttal to her post: "Perhaps it was compassion & patience that was missed here. Respect should be given to seniors who built this country and gave us opportunites they created."  I figured she would respond with a "screw you" type post but instead I got:

Her: "I know that will be me someday.. That's why I said I don't want to get old... My biggest fear in life..."

Me: "Aging people are wise and happy, old people are angry and withdrawn from life...Be joyfull and keep a sence of humor and you will age into something beautiful beyond your imagination."

Her: " :) "

My lesson here. Be a possitive light to other people. If you are angry and I am happy, it's my duty as a compassionate human to remind you that life is good and all darkness passes. When I am angry, I hope I find other compassionate people to remind me of the same thing. No one is immune to suffering, we all need to help each other even if it's just a kind word to make someone smile just for a minute. Suffering is perpetuated when others turn away from us.

Fighting or Flowing?

After watching this video it immediately hit a note for me. Listening to wealthy people repeat "focus, focus, focus!" and others say "just go with the flow". How do you find the balance between the two? How do you stay focused on a goal but just go with it? I now think that staying focused on what you want should be easy, if difficulties arise then perhaps it's not what you're supposed to be doing. The Taoists and Buddhists say life should be "easy" not difficult. But how much struggle is too much?

I read story after story of people who against all odds do what they set out to do. (We never actually see the whole picture or get the whole story) "Keep their noses to the grindstone", and do it. Is there a formula for all this? A right time, right place situation, devine intervention, greed, or stubborness?
I've made many plans to do things I've wanted to do. Some were so easy it was shocking. Like life just said, "here ya go". Some never made it no matter how hard I tried to followed "Jack's formula for success" to a tee. Some things I worked my fingers to the bloody bone for, just to find out it wasn't really worth all that suffering to get.  I've met people that are so attached to their "path" in life, so focused on a task that other directions life was guiding them got lost in the weeds. If your heart is happy, your soul sings and you feel love, what else is there? Isn't it what we all stive for?
I don't think there is an external formula! It's an internal formula. We can all see when people believe in themselves, they radiate happiness. People are drawn to them like moths to the light. Be a light. We get so attached to the outcome we forget about the journey. The destination is death, everything in between birth and death is the journey.
Always do your personal best with joy and intention. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, do something else. Let go of the need to compete with others.The greatest regret anyone on their death beds say is they wish they had done more things they wanted to do. Better to have tried and never to have tried at all. An "oh well" is better that a "I wonder what would have happened if I had" in my book.