Honesty

All right, I think it's time for a little honesty here... not that I've been lying to you or anything, it's just, I think it's time to face the fact that my public persona is only a half truth. 

Then again, whose isn't?

I guess there are always those whose social media lives are basically a second by second feed of the inner workings of the deepest parts of their minds, but most people fall into a much more private category I think. 

On the other side of the coin there are those who barely share ANYTHING personal via the internet... and in all honesty, they're probably the ones who are best off in this mad world.

In between the two lies the majority of social media users. You'd think this would be the happy medium, the best place to hang out, but it just doesn't seem that way to me. Not anymore.

We are the ones who only share the best parts of our lives with our virtual social networks. After all, who really wants to hear about the crummy stuff?

And you know, it might not be that we are purposely withholding the darker details of our lives, I mean, a lot of times that stuff is pretty personal and maybe doesn't need to be out there for all to see, but it ends up creating a very interesting, if unintentional, culture. 

Suddenly we are feeling inadequate, and even if we would have wanted to share a struggle or a failing, we are now too ashamed to admit to the world that our lives are not quite as shiny as everyone else's. 

I don't know, my brain is mushy from chronic lack of sleep, so maybe I'm completely wrong on all this (and perhaps I'll wake in the morning to discover with horror the gibberish I've thrown out for all to read), but I guess that my point is, I'm not perfect. I have a good life and there are many amazing things in it that I want to share with the world because I'm so happy or proud, but I also struggle... and I wish I didn't feel so abnormal for struggling so much. I wish I didn't feel like my entire social support system would despise me if they knew my short-comings.

Every once in a while I catch a glimpse of what some of my Facebook acquaintances are really experiencing, and I'm often taken aback. To finally see a glimpse of weakness or struggle in the midst of the perfect pictures and humorous statuses... it's almost astounding. You think you know how wonderfully these peoples' lives are going (obviously much better than your own),so to realize that just maybe they are in a similar boat to yours is momentarily earth shaking. 

I suppose maybe the answer is just to distance my self from social media in general... I don't know. I just wish there was a way to find a little bit more honesty in my virtual life...