Thursday, January 24, 2013

Revelation of sorts

Sometimes what seems like a great idea can in reality be not such a great idea. When I began doing the Wednesday world wonder night at my house it was very successful because I had time to invest in it. Don't get me wrong I really love sharing this idea with you all. I'm glad I gave you the examples and tools to create your own family evening. I however never realized how time consuming it was for me to not only prepare for my family evening but write a blog and do the research! In only a week I hit a wall. I am exhausted and our beloved World wonder night became a chore for me. My son said to me several times "YOU are always typing" or "Mom? Why aren't you listening to me?" and that made me feel pretty hypocritical. The purpose of family time is to be as a FAMILY. I love to teach but the greatest gift God gave me was my writing ability. I believe the purpose of a blog should be to share and write diatribes about everything. I believe blogs give people the ability to share their experiences and wisdom. Its a safe zone where no one can interrupt you or your thought process. Its an online journal. With that being said I am going to take a step back and utilize this blog to share my thoughts and worry less about deadlines. I really hope that I have inspired you to continue forward with family themed evenings.

So this week has been overwhelming as I mentioned before. I learned one major thing I am NOT Martha Stewart of parenting. I'm more like JK Rowling of parenting. I am a story teller. I love to create but to combine the two it takes a very organized less scatterbrained individual. I was flattered by the success of my blog but shocked that my Facebook page only had 75 likes. Ridiculous right? By ridiculous I mean the fact I am upset about 75 likes. I should feel happy but I wasn't. I became obsessive. I felt like giving up. That's when I started thinking "Why am I consumed by this? Why do I feel like my self worth and success lies with each facebook page like?" (I also had to slap myself with the reminder its only been over a week.) In this day of Youtube instant celebrities I feel that we put too much investment in social networking. I have watched friends and family crumble publicly through a simple status update. I have lost friends both real and cyber because of disagreements. I have unfriended a person and received a message 5 minutes later asking why I had deleted them. Do we really hold that much value in a social networking site? I have over 450 friends. The most likes I have received on a status was 67 and that was because I had a melt down over politics. I am guilty of the public verbal vomit. I am definitely not perfect. I have done the "vague-booking" status update. I have posted random quotes to make myself feel better. I have wrote responses to comments that have snowballed into chaos. I was friends with an individual that always started the status update with "I don't want to stir the pot but (insert touchy subject here)" I had to unfriend them simply because they made my blood pressure sky rocket. When your birthday rolls around you start counting how many happy birthdays you are going to get on your wall. We post vanity pictures, we cut down on ourselves, we stalk exes, we laugh at how fat our enemies from high school are, we debate politics, we share urban legends as truths etc etc. Social networking is what is consuming our time. "Oh I'll just check Facebook real quick" actually turns into 3 hours. I envy those who have never been into social networking. I wish I didn't rely on it so much. In my industry we use it as a marketing tool. If you don't have a webpage or facebook page you might as well not even exist as a business.

Truth is I am at fault for my own actions. I can't blame the duckface pictures or cat memes. It is all on my shoulders. Just like anyone with an addiction I need to take responsibility for my actions. I am proud of one thing. I am the same person away from the computer as I am behind the computer. I don't know how great that is to others but I am pleased that I don't have an "online persona".  The same things I type here I would say to anyones face. Hey I'm in the industry where you have to be honest or else your female client leaves with a mustache and unibrow. They say honesty hurts because its the truth. I feel honesty shouldn't hurt and that it should inspire and motivate. I think where I am going with this rant is we all are special. We all have amazing gifts blessed upon us. "Be the Change you want to see". Deep inside I feel that I am destined to help the world. I know that I am meant for bigger things. I definitely now know they have nothing to do with my Facebook community page or personal page. I am here to guide my awesome child through life not worry about how many likes someone needs to finally get a puppy so they can meet Justin Bieber.

So here is my challenge for you. Declare a Facebook free day for yourself. Walk away from it. Stop relying on cyber likes and reconnect with society the old fashion way. Go to coffee or lunch. Take your kiddos to the library for story time. Go to a matinee by yourself. Take the kids to a museum or park with a disposable camera and let them take the pictures. Laugh and be silly. Let the people around you wonder why you're laughing. Try the newest trend place all your cell phones in the middle of the table. The first person who checks theirs picks up the tab or you can utilize it for family time where instead of paying for the meal they do the dishes. See the world through clear eyes. Hold hands with your child and just go for a walk. Talk about the stars and put glow in the dark stickers on their ceiling. Make couch forts. Eat peanut butter and jelly from the jar. But during that time be true to the moment and avoid any social networking. I wont judge you if you don't update your status.
Laura

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