You Don't Need Social Media, Says Another Hypocritical Blogger
Social media needs you like a fish needs legs to walk.
Writing this article seems (is) hypocritical, but what other way can I reach you? The digital nomad? The modern, modem-enabled individual? The collective you just one wireless connection away? Yelling a message into a bottle, sealing it from leaking precious letters with a wine cork, and letting the currents of the sea carry the fragile, urgent note to whatever shore will listen would be more practical if it means being less superficial in delivery and more meaningful. I cannot delegate the user's thoughts anymore than the medium in which that user chooses to be fed thoughts does.
This is not my personal intent to change your mind or even to get you off of social media. What would you do to amuse yourself, anyway? Read words tattooed on dead trees? Please, don't make yourself laugh at another typist-with-access-to-the-internet's expense. There are far more larger egos with senses of humor that are easier to laugh with than laugh at. I write this knowing the strange alchemy of social media.
Most people have friends. A group of friends, some friends you count on one hand. For a select number of people who are selective and discerning, friends is a label that deserves more definitions. For these people, Facebook is not a true indicator of friendships and relationships. Friends for them do not belong on a Friends List. Connection online is really secondhand; a phantom limb trying to learn how to hug someone that is not there, but which settles on the digitized projection as good a substitute as any. Who would travel the length of desperation or loneliness to meet and solidify their interactions if it they were to only be achieved from behind a keyboard and Lithium-battery-powered screen?
Don't you make the exceptions for the paraplegic, ALS, comatose, or Groot pen pals of the world either; they make connections through technology because it is the best way they can. But if you are and I are not mind or body and countries apart, I see no reason why we should limit our interactions to better-than-reality bouts of meme-sharing, YouTube deep-dives, and pernicious followings that bleed over into the reality we neglected (for too long) in the first place. What's more, we have to use or lose this online learning curve if it means being accepted, liked, or at the least, considered to be an existing entity.
All I'm saying is that you and I are no less and no more human with or without an outlet to the bottomless internet. The online interaction is still us, and though it be immediate, it is still analogous of feeling close and not actual closeness. Imagine a coin with no sides and you have yourself a virtual world, changing constantly from amorphous rule to pigeonholed rabbit holes of fixed freewheeling without direct or instant consequence. Cyber bullying, neutrality and virtual rights, E-waste effects on the environment, among other social and nonsocial issues that find a way to collect their own digital dust, all can't be solved with a clear-cut dissertation through emojis. If you want to start a fire, you better choose if it's for warmth and meals or burning bridges. Or keeping it lit.
Live your life before someone else codes it.
5 Respectful And Empowering Ways To Handle Rejection
Not everyone will like you, but not everyone has to.
You work hard, you do the right thing, and the inevitable happens. Someone comes along and begins to give you a backhanded compliment, or if you have the misfortune, a backhanded comment. You are left with a bad taste in your mouth and your day starts to turn sour. When people belittle you and your efforts, here are five respectful and empowering ways to sweeten those moments of rejection.
1. Never give someone a reason to not like you.
cdn.pixabay.com
People will say what they want and think what they want, no matter the subject or person of choice. It will not matter who you are or what you do, someone or another manages to pay you their two cents. You have to remember, you did not give them reasons to justify their words or actions towards you. These people who exhibit unwarranted thoughts about you are just another drop in the ocean. They do not define your good intentions or self-worth. They are not for you and you need not place any investigation or worry into the mystery of why they do not like you. You do not have to reason with them any further. Simply look forward to the people who care to be curious and open-minded about you.
2. Kill them with kindness.
upload.wikimedia.org
The dead push up daisies, but you plant the seed. Some people will smile proudly knowing they have said something cruel or disheartening to get a rise out of you but look at this as an opportunity. Every moment is a chance for you to choose how you react. Ten percent of life is what happens to you, it is out of your control. Ninety percent of life is what you do about it. Use your words to encourage, not discourage, civil discourse. Say what matters and say it with an honest purpose. State your case and let them respond how they will; you cannot control others, but you can control yourself. Be a good example others have yet to show themselves.
3. Turn the "No's" into a "Yes."
cdn.pixabay.com
The poet Sylvia Plath had this to say about rejection: "I love my rejection slips. They show me I try." She was talking about the process of writing literary submissions for publication, but her attitude still stands. This is the mindset it takes to find the success you want out of life. Despite all the people that deny you and your work, there are people that see potential and promise in you. It does not matter how many people say "No" to you. What does matter is the number of times you can get back to work and look forward to that one "Yes." You are working for the "Yes's" in your life. Forget the dream-killers and eye-rollers, they lack the hope and drive you have in what you do. They do not do what you do and do not do it like you do. For every "No" there is a "Yes."
4. Let your work speak for you.
upload.wikimedia.org
Sometimes no matter how endearing your elevator pitch sounds or how carefully crafted your resume is, people still find fault where there might not even be any. Your accomplishments are your own and that is something to take pride in. Of course, the right amount of pride separates you from the rest and for the better. Pride and confidence must not become virtues or vices that exceed who you are. The work you put out is an extension of who you are and no one can take that away from you. Work speaks for itself and yourself best, so focus on your goals and let your results stand in for your words people did not value. Your best is rarely seen at the moment of inspiration, usually after the final stroke of the brush has wet the canvas. It is your goal to show that stalwart work ethic in good times and in bad.
5. Your process will protect you.
cdn.pixabay.com
Keep working. Rule out the distractions and the doubts, the fears, and the flippant fools. Know that your process will save you in trying times. Work against all odds. At some point, things turn even and add up, but you have to be dedicated and diligent. Your sights are seen only through your eyes and your need is to show others what you see. Until then, your skill, your talent, will be honed with consistency. Show up to your work even when you have not been hit with inspiration. The Kodak moment will present itself through your process. Due diligence is the price of success. Eyes on the prize and nose to the grindstone. No one knows your work better than you.
Be the trampoline that bends the will of gravity-like rejection long enough until you can fly.