“Everyone is so mean lately. Not to me, but each other.
And I’ll tell you, I’m sick of the verbal fighting my social media feed is draped in.
I turn to Facebook when I need a dose of adult interaction, inspiration, a laugh, pics of people and the world beyond my home’s walls, memes (oh how I love a good meme), and some quick news.
Instead, it’s everyone barking at and one-upping each other, judging and touting their self-righteousness, berating others while celebrating themselves, and basically just joy-riding an unkind, unempathetic, non-understanding, ill-compassionate, quick-to-critique train, all the way to ‘I’m better and ‘more right’ than you and for sure I’ll let you know it’ town.
Some of it is mask people vs. no mask people. A lot of it is brick and mortar parents vs. e-learning parents. It’s black vs. white. It’s the drinkers vs. the non-drinkers.
It’s those who believe anxiety and depression need pills vs. the ones who think those guys and gals should just ‘be happy.’ It’s the body-positive, no shame, McDonald’s-lovers vs. the forcefully motivating healthy-eating, gym fanatics.
It’s the oversharers vs. the internalizers. It’s men vs. women. It’s the worker-bee moms vs. the SAHMs. It’s those who meditate vs. the ones who aren’t into the ‘hippie crap.’ It’s the helicopter parent vs. the free-range ones.
It’s SO. MANY. PEOPLE. FIGHTING. It’s TOO many people fighting.
BUT…BUT…if you look hard enough, and you scan and scroll long enough, there are also people loving, leading, and being light-filled.
People are cheering for each other. People are building each other up. There are people chasing dreams and chasing love. Babies are being born, and people are being reborn.
There’s good advice to receive. There are reasons to laugh. There are stories about the general and more specific goodness of people. Listen, I get it—sometimes social media is too much. It can make you feel heavy.
But sometimes, if you use it right, if you carefully curate that feed of yours, or if you selectively let the positive in and the negative go, social media is just enough, and it can make a hard day, week, month, or year feel a bit less isolating and all-consuming.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Nicole Merritt of Jthreenme. You can follow her on Facebook, her website, or podcast. Submit your own story here. Be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.
Read more stories from Nicole:
Help us show compassion is contagious. SHARE this beautiful story on Facebook with friends and family.