I wrote an article last week titled “How My Grandfather Saved My Life,” which discussed the story of my mom finding her dad, and how he committed suicide shortly after. In it, I talked about how his story and his battle have allowed me, and others in my family, to realize that suicide is a permanent answer to a temporary solution, and has made us all the more aware of suicide and suicide prevention options.
I wrote this article, and shared a story that was pretty personal to me in hopes of touching someone’s life, and preventing this story from being written in someone else’s life. I was so excited to share my story, posted it in our Odyssey group, and shared on various social media platforms; however, do you know what the people surrounded me were more concerned with? A string of stories arguing back and forth over whether or not to rush and join a sorority.
“Wow,” that was seriously the first word that came to my mind. Have we really become a society that is more concerned with arguing over something as trivial as Greek life?
Why is it that our society is more likely to share horrible things that happen in the world as opposed to the amazing things that happen every single day?
It’s not even just that it was my article and was something that I was passionate about. It was simply the principle. That article had three times the shares as mine during the very first day it was published. While you can blame that on how many friends I have on social media, my targeted audience, or whatever other excuse you chose; I believe it says a whole lot about our society.
It also has nothing to do with the authors of those articles. They both wrote articles discussing how they felt on a topic, and I admire that. They have engaged in an active discussion on a topic which is extremely valuable.
Simply the fact that a topic such as that will ALWAYS receive more traffic than a topic such as mine, is simply astounding to me. As soon as I saw that article published, I knew right away just how low on the metaphorical totem pole my article would be this week.
So, call it what you want, jealousy, lack of friends, whatever makes you feel better. I believe this experience has made me much more aware of the things I absorb my time with on the internet. Instead of posting how terrible your day is, post about something amazing that happened. Instead of arguing political, social, religious issues...the list could go on and on, compliment someone on their ideas or accomplishments. Instead of sharing a news article about a death or tragedy, share one highlighting something amazing going on in our world, or a story that could impact someone else.
Focus on things that MATTER. Things that could make a DIFFERENCE. Because, no offense, but the world isn’t going to fall off its axis if you join a sorority or if you don’t join one.
