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.

It’s About: TIME

There are 365 days in a year, that is 8760 hours, or 525,600 minutes, or 31,536,000 seconds… in whatever terms you wish to think of it. How will you spend that time? Time is a valuable concept, once it is gone you can NEVER get it back, you have to make the best of it while you can. Many people, including myself, take time for granted. We put things off until tomorrow, but why put things off when they can be conquered today? We do not realize how valuable time is until it has run out. Lets face it, we are all going to die one day and we do not know when, so lets make the best of it. We all get busy in our lives because we have schedules that we need to keep and we lose sight of what matters most, we forget how to LIVE! With the schedules that we keep we become creatures of habit. We develop a routine and with each passing day breaking that routine becomes harder. We need to step away from our schedules once in a while to create new experiences and spend time with the people we love and care about. Time is not a promise, you do not know how much you actually have. So don’t waste it and do not waste that of others’. Life is too short to be wasted by sitting on your a$$ for too long, get up and go DO something! After all we are only here for a short time.

Cut the crap! Start doing what you want to do life is too short to be making excuses all the time. You have to live the experiences you want to have, because before you know it your window of opportunity will be nailed shut. New responsibilities will arise and doing things on a whim will be much harder. Responsibilities and excuses are not the same, responsibilities are the things in life that you HAVE to do and have no control over whereas excuses are things you intentionally put in your way. We cannot run from time nor can we run from our responsibilities, but we can make the most of it. Why sit idle when there is something more fulfilling that you could be doing? Where there is a will there is a way, all of those excuses will no longer matter and will fade away.

When we give people our time, we are giving them a part of ourselves that we will never get back. When there is a friend in need or we decide to go to a family gathering we are saying that those people are worth a portion of our life, we are willing to give up that time for these people. I always feel grateful when someone takes time out of their day to simply say, “hello,” because they do not HAVE to but it lets me know that I am worth the time and effort. However, there have been many moments in my life where I have felt that MY time has not been valued by others. There was one incident where I was waiting for someone for about an hour. There was not a single text message, or a mere phone call to let me know they were running late. Once the person did show up, I was astonished to see that they did not even show a single thread of remorse about wasting my valuable time. My time did not matter to them, the only thing that mattered to them was themselves and THEIR own time. I was angry beyond words and I realized that if I was not worth this person’s time, why should I bother wasting more time on this person? From that day forward, I limit my interactions with this person and do not rely on them for anything, because they simply do not value me. Remember, when someone takes their time out for you they do not have to, they do not owe you anything. I can only hope that the person who took my time for granted learns from what happened, because I learned that I cannot rely on them.

The only thing we have is time, but we never have enough simply because we are spending our lives doing things we do not want to do. The power of choice is an amazing thing. We can choose to do what we want with our time, so why not CHOOSE to do what makes us happy and fulfilled and count our blessings for the people in our lives? As Benjamin Franklin said, “Lost time is never found again.” Use your time doing what makes you happy, and spend your time with people that matter and show those people they matter.

~Value time.

To Control, or Not Control?

There are many aspects in your life that you can control such as your own happiness, who you talk to, where you go, what you feed yourself, what you do in your day-to-day life and the list goes on. However, there are many other things that you do not have control over, such as other people’s happiness, time, death or what other people’s opinions are.The things out of our control are the ones we tend to stress about the most, we are fearful that the outcome will not be a favorable one. I have found myself on countless occasions fixating on a situation that I do not have control over, but for what? I cannot change the outcome, so, why waste my energy? If you know there is nothing in your power to impact the result then move on, there is no point in wasting your time and energy. Do not fixate on things that are out of your control, it will only affect your wellbeing and cause chaos in your life.

It is in human nature to want to be in control of all aspects of life, we want to make sure the outcome is favorable for us. Naturally, we want to “fix” things or be in control of what is happening around us. We hate feeling helpless so we gravitate toward controlling the situations in our lives. We need to realize that there is nothing we can do to change the outcome, and that nothing needs to be “fixed.” Whether it be through divine intervention, or the universe working to maintain the flow, things are as they should be and we need to accept that. Trying to be in control causes unnecessary stress and anxiety, it causes us to hurt ourselves in more ways than we realize. Stressing does not change the result, it is useless and we cannot do anything with it. Sometimes we need to trust that the universe will take care of our problems, and shift our perspective and use that energy constructively.

When I was very young I realized that people are going to judge me, no matter what. Everyone will formulate an opinion whether it be good, or bad. I cannot control what they think of me, the only thing I can do is try to be the best person possible. Ultimately, I cannot control the thoughts of others, and I do not want to burden my mind worrying about what someone else thinks of me. This is an unnecessary stress. If I am happy being me, what does it matter what another person thinks? In the end I can’t control their opinion of me, but I can control how it affects me. Take control of the things that are within your reach.

We have all wished at some point in our lives that we could control time, but we can’t. There are countless movies that build their foundation on the concept of time travel. We as an audience hope and wish that these movies will one day become our reality. Sorry to break it to you, but it will NOT happen, because if it will, it would have already happened … if that makes any sense … Well if it doesn't that’s ok it, time travel is a completely different can of worms (by worms I mean blog post). The plain and simple point is that you cannot change the past or control the future. The past has already happened and whatever you say or do will not change the effect of what has already came to pass. We cannot predict the future nor can we control it, however we can influence our future by working on our present. All you need to do is be the best person you can possibly be NOW, and hope that your actions result in the best possible outcome.

Stressing about things out of our control is a worthless use of energy. That energy can be better used on hard work, or being someone’s friend, encouraging someone, or spreading kindness. Use that energy to make the world a better place, don’t be distracted by something that is out of your control.

If Today was Your Last Day...

We all go through that phase where we think that we are invincible, no one and nothing can harm us. But we will all realize that we are all gonna die one day. So, how do you want to be remembered? How will you leave your mark on this world? Life is short! We are always hearing stories of young people losing their lives before making their mark on the world, and that they had so much to live for … but the truth is that we do not know WHEN we are going to die, and who are we to say that this person did not take full advantage of their life. Death is tragic and unexpected no matter what the case may be, old or young, how do we know what kind of life the person lived? Yes, it is unfortunate if a 16 year old loses his/her life but, it is much worse for those of us who are left to deal with the loss, because they are no longer here. However if it is a 95 year old, we do not think twice about how this person got to live a “full” life, we will still miss them but knowing they lived so many years offers us a better form of closure. The number of years that we live does not determine the quality of life we live. As Abraham Lincoln once said “In the end, it’s not about the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” So whether it be 16 amazing years on this planet or 95 long years, make it count! Tomorrow is not a promise so you have to make the best of it.

I recently found out that someone I knew a while back passed away, and naturally I began to think about how amazing this person was. This person was only in my life for a short while, but they left a mark on my life. Their kindness and positivity motivated me to strive and work for what I want out of life. This person will never know the effect they had on me, because I got the inspiration from ONE conversation we had. I can only imagine how this person affected others … this was the single memory of them that had a lasting impression on me, one memory, one encounter in a sea of people who had also been touched by this person. This has got me thinking about the mark I will leave behind. How will I be remembered? I DO NOT live my life according to what others think. People are going to judge you no matter what you do or say, so I strive to be happy, and as I have said many times before, I want to leave a positive mark on those around me. After I came to this realization, I became more self aware of my actions and of my words. I want to be remembered as a kind hearted person because as Maya Angelou once said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Emotions are powerful! Kindness is key to leaving a lasting impression on someone. If you give time out of your day to just listen and to offer some words of kindness others will remember that.

How you live your life is how people will remember you. However you should not live your life based on how people will view you, it is YOUR life and you only get one, make the most of it, be happy. We all get wrapped up in our lives and we focus on our careers so that we can build ourselves up in order to get that promotion, or to buy that new house or car.  All this is important, but we need to balance our lives. We need those things to live in our society. If you do not have money, you do not have the conventional means of survival, yet you also need to maintain your mental health, and cultivate the real meaning behind life. We need to stop and look at what really matters in life, we need to cultivate the relationships that mean the most. Quality over quantity, focus your energy on something that feeds your soul. Invest your time into parts of your life that make you enjoy living, time is precious! Don’t waste it.

Death is inevitable, you have a choice in how you live and let live, the trick is to be you, and do no harm to others. Leave a positive mark, inspire others to be the best they can be, and they will remember you for that. You never know when you are going to pass away so make sure to always create positive, fruitful memories with the ones you care about. Spend your time carefully, do not let another second pass you by and feed quality moments to your life. Live every day like it’s your last.

~Be happy and don’t dwell on the past, live in the present and welcome the future with open arms.

Forgive but NEVER Forget

A few years back I was having a conversation with a friend about the popular phrase “forgive and forget.” She was telling me that she never forgives nor forgets, and I was arguing that you should forgive, but do not forget. I think that no matter the situation, if it is big or small, forgive. My reasoning is a purely selfish one, forgive for your own peace of mind. When it comes to forgetting, don’t, file the incident in the back of your mind.

At the end of the day what really matters is how you feel about yourself. So, if you are busy being mad at someone else, how do you think that will affect your well being? Life is short so why waste your precious time being upset at someone else, just forgive them and move on. Buddha once said, “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” By not forgiving someone else you are holding on to something that will only hurt you in the end, if you do not get hurt physically it may be mentally. As for the other person, all you can do is hope they have learned their lesson, you cannot control how how other people think.

Never forget. If this person has wronged you, you do not want to make this mistake 2 times, by allowing them to hurt you. Some will say that you are not truly over an incident until you have forgotten, but I am here to say is not true. Going back to my post on Trust , I say that because this person betrayed me I now know that I cannot trust them in the same way again. I have made peace with what happened, it is no longer bothering me, it’s water under the bridge as they say. However If I forget that this person betrayed my trust, it will only happen again. When someone does something that causes you to rethink your relationship with them, it is hard to bounce back and act as though nothing has happened. With that being said, people do change and learn from their mistakes, it is not right to hold something against someone that happened along time ago. With time comes experience, and as we all get older we learn from our mistakes. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt, because you cannot truly forgive someone unless you can move past the situation.

Another thing that people do not do often enough is forgive themselves. The fact of the matter is that you cannot change the past. Life is SHORT! (Check out my other post in Dying) If you cannot change what happened, deal with it,learn from it and move on. If you need to say you're sorry say it and go back to living your life. You cannot put things on hold, time does not stand still for anyone. Do you want to spend your life holding a grudge? I have never met a single person on this planet who did not want to be happy, so get over it and be happy … and yes it IS that simple. We are only as happy as we allow ourselves to be. SOOOO forgive the asshole (even if that asshole happens to be YOU) and move on!

~Live, Learn. Move on.