The real us vs. the online us

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could live our social media life all the time?

I mean we post beautiful and happy pictures of ourselves, our family and our friends. We post our smiles and celebrations. We post pictures of oceans, mountains, sunrises, sunsets, boats and our favorite vacation spots. We post pictures of our delicious meals at home or in restaurants and sometimes include our frosty beverage or share the bottle of wine we just ordered. We love to post pictures of our children and grandchildren, our dogs, our cats, horses, turtles and any other pet we own. I don’t know about you, but I want to live in that world of love, happiness and beauty all of the time.

ere are some folks out there who prefer to post negative thoughts. ey go on toxic rants and, well, just post some not-so-nice things. e good news is that we can choose to unfriend them or mute them for a while. ere is just too much goodness in the world that we don’t need to get mired in the yuck and muck of life.

What would it look like for us to be more consistent, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow? What would it look like for us to be so consistent in our actions, thoughts, words and posts? What would it look like and feel like if we were the same happy, cheerful, thoughtful, fun and loving person that people see on social media? ere is that joke about a police o cer pulling over a car. ere was a woman showing animated signs of being angry and upset, waving her arms around, screaming and demonstrating all kinds of road rage. When the o cer pulled her over, she asked why she was being pulled over. e o cer replied that he thought the car may have been stolen. Confused, the woman asked why. e o cer said because he saw the Jesus bumper sticker and the sh emblem on the back of the car and then saw the anger and road rage going on so he simply assumed that the car must have been stolen.

I guess the hard question we must ask ourselves is this, “Why am I not the same person that I want others to see in me?” What is driving my inconsistency? Am I faking it? Am I faking it just so others don’t see the real me or the other side of me? Or that they won’t see the di culties in my life or my moments of being fragile?

How many times have we argued with our spouse or children and then when a friend shows up, we put on our best smile, happy face, and kindest appearance? We have all done it and have done it more times than we care to remember. We have all done it, and all the while knowing we were faking it or being disingenuous.