To The Cheerful Person On Their Rainy Days, You Are Valid
The world is not always sunshine and rainbows, and you do not have to be, either.
Ask friends of mine to name a quality about me, and one a lot them will point out the fact that I am almost always smiling. I like to laugh and smile -- not to quote Buddy the Elf in April, but smiling is my favorite! It is probably my favorite go-to expression. However, what a lot of people do not see is that I have my down days. I have days when smiling and laughing is a real struggle, or when I have so much on my plate that going out of my way to be happy takes more effort than I have stored in me. Be it a symptom of college and growing up or a facet of life, I cannot always be content.
For whatever reason, these down days are not spoken about. One does not casually throw how they cried themselves to sleep during dinner with friends to choruses of "same" and similar examples. For the normally cheerful person, this is even more impossible of a feat, unless they wish to hear the dreaded "But you seem so happy!" when they self-disclose. Not being able to talk about your fears, anxieties, or sadness to those around you for fear you break the illusion of happiness can grow really stifling really fast.
To those cheerful souls stifled by their down days, you are valid.
It is not deceitful to one day be happy and the next day be sad. It is okay to confess you have not been doing well too, even though the conventional way to go about it is to say, "I'm fine" and deal with it later in private. I know I have my times where I, knowing people see me as a relatively happy individual, hide my emotions in an effort to not burden them. I keep it all bottled up and let it fester until it hopefully passes and I can move on. This is not healthy, nor is it realistic, but it is what I have grown accustomed to doing because of my fears.
I imagine my form of bottling things up is not an isolated experience, especially for the typical cheerful person. Everyone has their down moments they feel scared to share. It is cooler not to share, because who wants to hear about someone else's sadness? People just want the good stuff. Life is hard enough without having to hear other people's problems. However, these emotions are normal.
I mean really common.
Even the happiest and most successful person you can think of probably has had them. By asking someone you normally guide for help in getting past a particularly tough day, you are not upsetting them. You are not invalidating the happiness they normally turn to you for. You are not giving up some ruse. You are showing you are human and have real feelings, too. You are showing you have just as much a right to feel your emotions as anyone else. A few more smiles and laughs here and there do not invalidate you. It is just as okay as confiding to someone you know that that previous "I'm fine" you threw their way at dinner actually translates to you are experiencing a rough patch and are finding it hard to find your way back to happiness.
To the cheerful people of the world, feeling sad sometimes is a part of life. Your sad days are just as valid your happy ones, and choosing to express that sadness will not discredit any happiness you may share with the world. Keep spreading your joy when it comes.
Just know that, when the dark clouds do roll in, you are allowed to ask someone for an umbrella.
We All Need To Learn How To Combat Nasty Comments, One Tweet At A Time
To post or not to post . . . that is the question. Ever not known how to get your point across without typing in all caps and hurling insults left and right? Yeah, me too.
I have a hard time knowing how to respond to something that just seems so utterly wrong in my mind. How do you gently tell someone everything they've ever believed is sexist or racist or just unethical? Do you even tell them? How do you decide whether to speak up or not? What medium should you use to talk to them? Will your posts come back to haunt you when you're looking for a job? If you've ever been frustrated with these questions, you are not alone! I still don't know all the answers.
It's difficult to know when and where to post/comment/talk in our day and age where social media reigns king over all. I don't know about you, but I'm paranoid about everything I put on the internet under my name because I'm worried it'll come back to bite me in the butt when potential employers google me. I've had a lot of recent experience struggling with when and where and how to reply to something I don't agree with online.
Check out my article about checking yourself (before wrecking yourself) on your social media comments here!
The things I keep in the forefront of my mind when deciding whether to post or not are respect and validation. No matter what someone posts on their social media page, every person deserves to be respected and to have their experiences and opinions validated. I want to make sure I respect and validate everyone because that's how I want to be treated when someone comments on my social media posts. Even if I just want to tear the other person's argument apart, I do my best to have calm, respectful conversations. If anything, hopefully, anyone who sees your comments will understand your good intentions of educating the person you're arguing with. These good intentions are necessary for the person to actually listen to you.
If I start yelling out meaningless insults in between insightful comments, the person is only going to be blinded by the insults. They won't even begin to consider what I have to say because they're too busy being offended.
My goal isn't to offend anyone - it's to educate them about my thoughts so they can maybe be well-informed citizens. I don't want to make people angry; I want to get someone to rethink their opinions and take a look from a different perspective. No, this won't resolve the world's issues, and I'm not claiming it will. But if we respond out of kindness and understanding instead of hurt and animosity, we just might be able to sway someone's opinion or (as the kids are saying these days) spark some "woke" thoughts.