Saturday, May 9, 2015

Pants On The Ground, Pants On The Ground...Or Real Life? Yes Please!

A few months ago as my Pastor was preaching on Sunday morning, he made the comment about how people post things on social media which make their lives only look good, hardly ever posting true life pictures. I must admit I do this as well, I think we all do. Isn't it funny how we try and make everyone think our lives are going well, and we never have any trouble or challenges in life? I wonder why we are like this, why do we care so much for what others think of us? Truly, I'm pretty sure others really spend very little time even thinking about us, for aren't we all more concerned with what is going on in our own little world?

It's almost ridiculous to think how much we think our lives are more important than others. This really is why we post so many pictures of all the fun we're having isn't it? I don't usually think of taking pictures to remember my challenges. I mean, it's like you're getting in trouble at work, and your boss is yelling at you for whatever reason, do you stop them and ask if you can get a picture to remember this day? Of course not, but if something is going good we want to show it off.

Take today for instance, I'm working in the kitchen putting away the clean dishes and reloading the dishwasher with the dirty ones (probably not in the correct place of course) and as I'm just going along with my day, my shorts fell down around my ankles. My hands are full and my shorts are around my ankles, great. Real life right? What is my first thought? Take a picture and send it to my wife, once she responds with several crying with laughter emoticons, I decide to share this with the world. After all, if this makes her laugh, then surely it will make others too. And I have no problem sharing the good, bad and ugly portions of my life with others, it's what I do to help others see how the transparent life is the best life.

But as I was thinking about all of this, I realized the reason most people only post the good things in their lives is because they want others to think they've got it all together in life. Don't get me wrong, not everyone who posts things in social media are all narcissists. Looking at the picture of my shorts around my ankles however, what are your thoughts concerning this. What I mean is, would it horrify you if there was a picture of you like this out on the internet? If you say yes, why do you think this is? For me this picture is an opportunity to get some laughs, and also a blog out of it as well.

I wonder if most people are just afraid of letting people around them find out just how truly boring their life is. If you judged people's lives by what you see on social media, then you'd think every other person's lives were like something out of a Hollywood movie while your's isn't. I think this is why social media drives a lot of people to be depressed. Always thinking why isn't my life as exciting as so and so's. It is a trap too, and to fall into it will only lead you to horrible places.

I think like my Pastor said, it would be good if everyone posted more real life pictures of themselves. Maybe like sitting on the toilet and realizing you're out of toilet paper, or waiting in line while the family of ten is in front of you at the fast food restaurant, or you just sitting at home doing nothing (my favorite thing of all to do). I really wish we could all be more transparent, and less of the actors we tend to be. Really life would then become more interesting as we found out we all really are pretty much the same, don't you think?

Well there's that....for the Kingdom and the King!

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