Social Media: It’s Sucking Your Soul

I recently went to a wedding and I was appalled to find that the younger generation choose to socialize at the event through social media! As I was looking around the venue, the older generation was walking around and having drinks with one another while engaging in friendly conversation. However, the younger generation was sitting at their table and taking photos for their SnapChats, Instagrams, posting status updates to Facebooks and Twittering them tweets and whatever else is cool these days. Once I arrived home I decided to check my social media, and I was able to see EVERYTHING that was being posted during the event. I do not think that there is anything wrong with this type of expression, but I began to question why people WANT to post stuff in the first place. Is it to show off? Is it to seek attention? Is it about how many “likes” you can get? Or is it the simple fact that people CAN? Whatever the case may be, I think that it is important that we limit our social media interactions. It is consuming us and is putting a stop to the amount of face-to-face interactions we are having.

When you are plugged into social media and you are cyber stalking someone (don’t even try to lie, we ALL have done it) they seem to have their lives together. The key word there is: SEEM! When people post things to social media, they are posting the “cream of the crop” so to say. Meaning they are shedding light on all of the fun things and great times that are happening in their lives. So to be a third person looking in, and to think that they have their live together is completely wrong. We are only getting one side of the story, we are getting what people choose to post, what they CHOOSE to make public. I am sure that others feel the same way when they Facebook stalk you. When people do post something negative or something bad that is happening in their life, we tend to think that they are only seeking attention. Why is it ok to show off that you went on an awesome vacation, but when you are having a rough time, people think you are seeking attention? When people post things that could be viewed as “attention seeking,” it could just be a coping mechanism for something the poster is going through, and could simply be reaching out for some support. Everyone has the right to post whatever they want to THEIR social media, and if you do not like what you are seeing you have the right to ignore, block, unfriend or whatever you see fit.

There are also those circumstances where things get posted to social media to show others up, air out the dirty laundry, or to poke at someone else without actually saying who or what they are talking about. I get that this is one way people deal with issues in their life but it is petty and immature. If you cannot say something to someone’s face or if you are trying to send a message to someone indirectly, there is a deeper issue and you need to figure out why you have trouble talking face-to-face. If you find yourself on the other end of things and think that everyone is out to get YOU and is attacking YOU …. First off get a life, the Earth, Sun, Moon and whatever else is floating out there is not spinning around YOU. Secondly, if the other person cannot say something to your face, then it is simply not important enough for you to worry your little head about it.

Focus on what is important in your life. If you are spending long hours on something that is not enriching your life, then essentially you are wasting away. What you see on your facebook news feed is not reality, we choose to believe that all of those people on there are our “friends,” but our friends are the people that are there for us when we need them. Those friends that are there for us before the Sh*t hits the fan and are there after to clean it up and deodorize, those are the people that ARE important, THEY get dirty fo’ you! The more time you spend fussing with social media you are missing out on the reality around you. Reminder: Your time is precious! You will not be getting a refund for time spent unwisely. Don’t indulge in social media to the point where you aren’t even enjoying the experience in the flesh. Ask yourself this, “Is all the time I’m spending letting the world know what I’m doing actually taking away from the actual thing they see me doing?” If the answer is yes then stop and LIVE for LIFE’S SAKE! Life is only temporary.

Many people use social media like Facebook to keep in touch with their friends and family members. My friend (actual friend in the flesh) was telling me that they were being tagged in pictures of a newborn and said to me “As time goes by I’m probably going to watch this baby grow up through a screen.” It’s not bad that we look to these means of communication as a way to stay “connected,” we must be careful and think about how we are beginning to drift from a face-to-face society to a face-to-FACELESS society. The lack of physical contact can be desensitizing, it allows us to stretch out our feelings over time therefore losing our initial reaction. We are no longer genuine in our sentiment about our initial reactions when we are sitting behind a screen, we have the choice to respond to others when we feel the time is right, even if that is 2 years later.

What about 10 years later? As we get invitations for our high school reunions, I begin to wonder what is the point. Through social media, I know who is having kids and when they are having them (literally), who got married, who got divorced, who is doing what job, who came out of what the closet, when and where people have traveled. If I can see all of that through a screen on my phone why do I need to physically go to a reunion? If I REALLY wanted to catch up with someone I can simply send them a message or write on their wall. Social media has taken the excitement out of attending a reunion. It has given us the privilege to keep in touch with one another long after we have moved on with our lives, but it stops us from enjoying these types of social events.

Everyday we are presented with the opportunities to speak to the people around us, or we can CHOOSE to look at our phone. If we put our phones down for a minute who knows who we will meet, but we will NEVER meet that person if we are busy looking at who is having what baby on Facebook.UNPLUG! Turn that Facebook-thang off, and turn yo face on! Your lips are there to talk to people and your brain is there to think and engage with others in CONVERSATION! … ACTUAL CONVERSATION WITH YO’ FACE TO ANOTHER FACE.

WE WON!!!

We all have goals, and we all have the ability to conquer them. The trick is to have a plan and set realistic expectations to meet your goal. You also need to network with people who will support you in reaching your objective. Even if you feel like you’re not making progress, as long as you are working toward your target you’re benefiting from the process. When you finally accomplish your goal, there is a deep sigh of relief in knowing that all your hard work has paid off. However, goals are never ending, there will always be something greater you want to strive towards. You have to take them one goal at a time and one step at a time.

Prior to the 2014 November elections, we formed a coalition of community members to get involved with our local city election. We were afraid that our city government was going to be bought out by HUGE corporate interest which would tamper with the lives of our community members for the worse. Our work was crucial in educating our fellow voters about what was going on with the elections and getting them out to vote for the candidates we believed had the best interest of the community in mind. I can't even begin to explain how difficult I saw this race. There was so much money being poured into this election from large corporate interest, while we, the members of the community, only relied on a bit of funding and most importantly we had a community base unparalleled by these greed driven institutions. All of the grassroots efforts we put into making this election sway in our favor was unquestionably difficult, but not impossible. Day after day for months, we came together over tables of bottomless coffee mugs, energy bars, and pep talks. The days were endless and melted into each other, entire hours of restlessness allowed us a glimpse of insanity, we were holding on by a mere thread.

Everyone had a role to play in order to achieve our common goal. It wasn’t difficult to fall off track because we held each other accountable and expected everyone to put in a hundred and ten percent. However, when YOU are the only one fully responsible for YOUR goal, you have to hold YOURSELF accountable. The important thing is to keep your eyes on the prize, I know that this sounds a bit cliche but if you stray away from your ultimate goal, it will be much harder to reach.  For some, this means socializing less and dedicating majority of their time focusing on what they want to accomplish. I know during the time we were working toward our goal I couldn't think about anything else but the elections. Educating my neighbors on some of the issues we need to address as a community made my work so fulfilling. The lives of my fellow neighbors, family and friends along with my own are at stake and depends on the work we were doing. There were moments when I thought all hope was lost but knowing that I had other people who counted on me to play my role in the bigger picture gave me the motivation to keep going. I had support from close friends and family who believed in me and gave me the courage to keep fighting and keep giving my best no matter how much doubt kept crossing my mind. Don't be afraid to ask people for advice or to talk to a friend when you feel like your efforts are futile or when you feel like it's just too much. Perhaps all you need is a little bit of encouragement and words of wisdom to keep your flame burning until the end and don't give up.

In the end your efforts will not go unnoticed keep that in mind. There is no way to expect your reward if you don't put in the work. When you can almost taste your victory, push harder and know that you will be able to look back on the hard work that you did, and be satisfied with what you have achieved. You will always encounter setbacks but remember the words of George A. Custer, “It’s not about how many times you get knocked down that count, it’s how many times you get back up.” You will always learn from your mistakes and they will help you to figure out how you can do better. That is why it’s important to mentally prepare yourself for the ups and downs and always keep in mind that hard work will not go unnoticed. The universe will reward you well my friend, you just have to see beyond the horizon to realize what that reward will bring. Trust me nothing is impossible just keep your head in the game and know in the end the weight will melt off your shoulders knowing that you did everything you could.

After all the blood and sweat that we put into the election, we rejoiced in victory. All of the candidates we vouched for WON! Now that they are in office I can sleep easy, knowing that they have the community’s interest in mind. We can now work together with our governing reps to build a better community and work to accomplish new and exciting goals! This is just the beginning, you’re never really done because there will always be more goals you want to achieve. It’s important to reflect on the things you have already accomplished, but you should never “run out” of goals, and you should be constantly thinking about how you can grow and develop from where you are. Keep your body busy, because when you die that’s it... there is not much to do then, so do everything you want now!

Gender Neutral

Gender roles today are slowly changing, but not fast enough. For the longest time, women and men have been assigned different roles that set the precedent for society’s expectations of them. And these separations create an unequal, biased spectrum of what is socially acceptable of either sex. our social construction of assigned gender roles can be traced back to the moment we are born and it shapes our mentalities for the rest of our days. The only way to change the mold society has put us in, is to break it and make a new one.

It starts at a young age. Parents’ roles in the home are an important piece in how their children interpret what is socially expected of them based on their gender. For example, in a nuclear family if the father takes on the role as the “bread winner” and the mother takes on the role as the “homemaker,” a son will believe that it is his responsibility to provide for his family when he grows up. The same goes for a daughter in the exact same setting, she will believe that she has to take on her mother’s responsibilities in the future. Now, I know that this is not true for EVERY situation, but parents influence the roles of each sex, and it all starts in the home.

We establish gender roles even before birth, from first determining the sex of the baby, to then planning a baby shower, then preparing the child’s room … the funny thing is ... we have not even met the pre-born yet, so how do we know what they would want in their room? These standards are also reinforced once the child begins to go to school. Instead of shaping their lives for them and coloring their lenses in pink or blue, we should be conscious about how we manipulate the child’s environment. We need to find ways to NOT influence our children's decisions based on gender specific expectations that WE’VE been raised with. By doing so, we can begin to start breaking the mold.

However the the media will always perpetuate these assigned roles by having commercials that show little girls playing with barbies and little boys playing with remote controlled cars. It is our job to not let those images shape what our children think is socially correct when it comes to the toys they play with. I remember when I was very young, during my birthday or Christmas, people who didn’t know me very well would get me gender specific toys that were meant for girls. The toys I got were barbie dolls, makeup kits, a play set that simulated a kitchen, it EVEN came with miniature plastic pots, pans, cooking utensils all the homemaker galore!!!.... yay… Those toys were atrocious, they represent conformity and I was  born a REBEL >:) … hence this blog post. The people who bought  those toys for me were influenced by the images in the media and they assumed that I would like these toys simply because I happen to be a girl. They didn’t even know my personality. DO NOT make the assumption that just because I’m a woman I will be cooking a man’s dinner, cleaning HIS home, raising the children that have HIS last name … well now that my spontaneous rant is over … My point is, we need to move past these pre-assigned gender roles and set a new model that will allow everyone to be themselves without the pressures that society imposes on what we SHOULD play with.

So the main idea I want you all to take from this post is to analyze how you influence specific roles in society. What are you doing that conforms to the rest? What fairytales are you telling your princess? What legends are you telling your knight before bed? Like I mentioned in my previous post, children will absorb whatever you expose their minds to. Use this as an opportunity to break the mold we have been baked into by an EZ Bake Oven. “Children must be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think”- Margaret Mead

Call of Duty: Calling All Parents!!!

Your children are a reflection of who you are. Whatever you teach them (or don’t teach them) is a direct result of what YOU think is important. A lot of folks blame video games for causing violence in our youth. Video games are not bad at all, however the neglect of teaching your kids what is ok and what is not, is unacceptable. For kids, video games are just a hobby, it should not be any more than that … unless they turn it into a career in the future. Video games do not cause violence. Parents need to stop blaming outside sources for the misguidance of their children which results in poor behavior. Our children are always learning, it starts the moment the child is born. Their first teachers are their parent, so everything the parent does is picked up on. Their minds are like a sponge, they will absorb EVERYTHING they see and hear. Video games are NOT to blame, however the lack of parental guidance IS to blame.

How young is too young? Most younger kids haven’t developed the cognitive ability to differentiate why some things are wrong or right. All they know is what you tell them. As they develop they begin to question why things are the way they are and that’s when they’ll fully understand the “why.” If they are exposed to violent video games at a young age, before they have the capacity to understand what is going on they will be desensitized to the content in the video game. They will be more likely to overlook the difference between the virtual world of videogames and reality. Too much gaming will make them think the game is their reality. If the game contains violence, for instance killing someone (COD), will they understand that it is not ok to kill in real life? Each video game has a rating, and those ratings are there to help parents make an informed decision. Children should not even have access to these kinds of games. If they do then somewhere along the line the parents failed at ensuring that these games do not reach the hands of their child. Parents have to be the filter in the home and establish what is allowed and what is punishable by Parent Law.

If kids are spending too much time playing video games, not only are they vulnerable to becoming numb to the violence but they are spending precious time on the idiot box that they could be spending outside. They could play a friendly game of basketball, learn to swim, go for a walk, play with the household pet, or even go camping where they can grow mentally, physically and work on their team building skills and develop social skills. If you don’t want your children to spend so much time on games then set time limits. Video games are not the only form of entertainment for your child, make sure to have books in the home!!! Surround your children with the things that will promote healthy development like educational books and magazines, or take them to museums and exploratoriums. Most importantly always express your love for them. They need constant family support to be able to succeed in life and live happily.  

Parents need to be the primary educator in their children’s life. The earlier YOU start to teach your kids what is acceptable and expected of them the better. Of course this won’t rule out the rebellious stage that most will eventually reach in their teens. The point is that if you teach them at a young age that violence is not good and it is never the answer, they will know when they see violence to decode it as something that is wrong. If the child receives no guidance whatsoever on violence in a video game, whatever they see in that game is going to register as the norm. It is not a valid statement to say that video games teach children to be violent, that will happen only if you failed to instill principles which indicate that violence is wrong. The parents need to teach their kids to distinguish the virtual game platforms from reality. Teach them what’s right and take responsibility for the life you have created. Your little human will thank you for it.

“The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it.”

Bill Cosby

-Edith

The Power of a Smile

Staring … its normal, we all do it. Human beings are social animals, therefore we are naturally curious.  I am aware that in some cultures around the world looking at others is the norm and no one minds it. I don’t like when people stare at me, but I know I do it too. The breaking point for me is when the “looker” is aware that I have caught them staring and they don’t stop. Some people immediately turn away in discomfort or give a friendly smile or if they are in earshot range just say a friendly “hello.” How do you react when you catch the person glaring at you or if you’re the one to get caught? The simple hello and/or smile breaks the ice and lets you know that the other person meant no harm.

Which brings me to my recent staring encounter. I was on the BART (rapid train) this weekend and I caught a couple staring at me, they would exchange a word or two and revert their attention to me. Mind you, I am not the only person on the train so I don’t know what was so intriguing to them. I’m not one to care unless I get a bad vibe, but I wanted to see what they would do if I focused my gaze back in their direction. It seemed to do nothing and I think it was because they were engaged in conversation, making my attempts of outstaring them futile. However, in most occasions the gaze is an invitation to engage with another soul and display your energy. This can be a beautiful experience and it shouldn’t be wasted.

When you smile you automatically neutralize any misconception of your personality or mood. Smiling at somebody allows them to feel comfortable. It’s something you do when you want to show that you are happy. But how do you handle a cold response? The way I handled the situation on the BART was to not mind, in the end I know I shouldn't mind it because the person is just a stranger. Another aspect to think about is the fact that we don’t know how people are feeling. Everyone’s day is different, some might have a bad day while others might have a good one. The point in general is that you shouldn’t feel upset if you don’t get a smile in return. If you smile, at least you offer the friendly invitation for someone to smile back, if they don’t respond it’s not on you. Who knows that person could be the next president or your soulmate?

If YOU are the person that is feeling upset and giving off negative energy, most likely you won’t want to smile. However if someone smiles there is a slight chance that they may help you feel better. It’s important to let positivity into one’s life so one can carry on. Your day is only as positive as you allow it to be. Make the effort to smile even when upset. Doing so will send positive energy into your environment and will bounce back.

The next time someone makes eye contact with you, though it may be a little intimidating, try to at least acknowledge them, it really doesn’t hurt. Step out of your comfort zone a little and try to have a friendly conversation with a complete stranger. Remember, your actions toward others can set off feelings in them and you want to give off positive vibes.

With that being said I will leave you with this TED talk. Enjoy!

:D SMILE :D