Wisdom Wednesdays: Society of braggarts?

Last month I spent a night chatting about life with two friends. You know, REAL life - the kind that includes the "bad" and the "ugly." You know that kind? Okay in case no one has told you...friendships take work, marriage can be hard, dating is complicated, work is a source of stress, babies are challenging - I'll stop here, but you get the gist. A couple of us had recently read a Wall Street Journal article about social media "braggarts." Could it be we are all becoming narcissists? Take a quick read:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444184704577587091630924000.html

I filed it away as something to blog about and then recently came across another friend's blog about a similar subject, how we choose to portray ourselves on social media. Scroll down a bit until you see the headline "Thankful":
www.rachelgbolton.blogspot.com

Social media is amazing and personally I'm a fan. It allows me to keep in touch with friends spread across the country in one fair swoop, and adversely allows me to see what's going on in their lives. This blog has been fun because I've gotten to write regularly which I love. However I do realize that the "stuff" we all post on social media sites are mostly happy things. In my case, I typically post pictures of my cute (try to argue with me on this one, you'll lose) baby, my smiling husband, etc. etc. But obviously, this is not my life all the time. I like to think I'm a pretty real person on and offline; those that know me well may even say I'm a bit private. But to those that don't talk to me regularly but do see my Facebook or blog posts, you may think my life is peaches and cream. Well, spoiler alert it's just not; as Rachel reminds us it is totally objective. Bragging? Who knew? Maybe I should devote a day a week to just talking about the crap to balance the positive out. I could call it "Winey Wednesdays" or "Sucky Saturdays" but, that's not very beneficial and honestly it'd probably be destructive and only to me.



So is what the article saying true? When we post positive or happy things on social media sites are we bragging narcissists? When we look at other folks pages are we breeding more narcissism? My husband would say YES!! and that's why he is not on Facebook, but I mostly say, just don't take it too seriously.

Sharing is not always bragging, and the bigger priority here is not allowing ourselves to get caught up in what we see online. I can promise that no one is living the perfect life no matter what is portrayed online, and if you tend to compare yourselves with others (let's be honest we've all done it), just don't. Social media is like 'keeping up with the Joneses' on steroids, and we all know how the whole "keeping up" thing goes...ya lose...every time. Real life may not be as pretty as the photos we see or the status updates we read, but it is just as wonderful.

"Be not anxious about what you have, but about what you are." -Pope Gregory I

xox
Lauren