F is for Fasebuken

Anytime Ken takes out the iPad Kole says, "You Fasebuken, Dad?"
Facebook.  Instagram.  Twitter.
We're all kinda up in each others' business.
At times it's amusing... I love those postcards with old fashioned people saying modern things.  Or just regular people saying funny things.

And sometimes, it's a little crushing.  It's easy to feel inferior.  Below par.  And inadequate.
My sister, Andi, sent me an article this morning from Relevant Magazine written by Shauna Niequist.
It's been what Andi and I have been realizing, what we needed to hear, and what I want to share.

The danger of the Internet is that it’s very very easy to tell partial truths—to show the fabulous meal but not the mess to clean up afterward. To display the smiling couple-shot, but not the fight you had three days ago. To offer up the sparkly milestones but not the spiraling meltdowns.

True, right, RIGHT?!  Why aren't people... people anymore?  Everyone (according to the Internet) has perfect families, perfect homes, and perfect BMIs.  What's the other option, Shauna?


Community happens when we hear each other’s actual voices, when we enter one another’s actual homes, with actual messes, around actual tables telling stories that ramble on beyond 140 pithy characters.
 
But seeing the best possible, often-unrealistic, half-truth version of other peoples’ lives isn’t the only danger of the Internet. Our envy buttons also get pushed because we rarely check Facebook when we’re having our own peak experiences. We check it when we’re bored and when we’re lonely, and it intensifies that boredom and loneliness.

Some days, I feel like I have nothing to offer, like I must be the only one who isn’t a graphic designer and hasn’t yet managed to display her entire darling life online with lots of chevron and mint accents. I feel so certain that my life is a lot less darling than other peoples’ lives.

But that’s the Internet. The nature of it. I so easily fall prey to the seduction of other people’s partial truths and heavily filtered photos, making everything look amazing. And their amazing looking lives make me feel not amazing at all.

Although we come on here for entertainment, how often are we left truly entertained?  Or uplifted?  Or do you sign off feeling belittled?  Inferior?  Deflated?  Or Disheartened.

If that's the case when you read my blog then by all means break up with me.  I mean- look at my pics and you'll be able to tell I'm a 26-34-26.  And my kids are angelic messengers from above who ne'er step out of line.  And my house... oh pardon.... my mansion is spic and span thanks to my maid.  But even if something I once said- or how I portray my life leaves you feeling less than who you are.... this needs to be our goodbye.

Shauna ended in the same way I wish to end:

Let’s choose community. Let’s stop comparing. Let’s start connecting.

Her full article is here.

Last year's A to Z: F is for Fluffer Nutter.  It's about growing up with all sisters and how the "F-word" evolved in our house.