To be someone who doesn’t just think outside of the box, they smashes the box they were meant to fit in, means you have to think differently.
Sometimes you even look a little differently.
Dress a little differently.
Act a little differently.
When you think like that, it seems strange to most and will probably make you feel like an outsider.
That is until people begin to see what it is that you have created.
You weren’t intended to live your life in the confines of a box that someone else created for you.
God created you to be you. One of a kind. Special.
You were created for the purpose of leaving a lasting mark.
Not so YOU can be remembered…so HE can.
What makes you different? Unique? You?
* Side note – I couldn’t find an actual picture of Jesus, so I went with this one. Also, I am not saying that any of these people are on the same level as Jesus or that Jesus was crazy. So, lay off!!!
** Side, Side note – Can you name everyone in those photos? The first person to guess them all will win a free Otter Pop!
(Click play on the video above and listen in the background as you read this post.)
Life really is good.
We are all incredibly blessed.
Now if we all would just recognize that we are blessed, look past our disagreements with one another, and mobilize to do something great.
Facebook is not a relationship builder or breaker. It’s just a tool. What gives Facebook life is how we use it and who we allow to speak into our lives by making them “friends”.
What I really want to see happen on Facebook is for myself and my friends to use it as a vehicle to make the world a better place.
I believe that we all have causes that we are passionate about and at the same time we are all creative enough to take some initiative to get something started. Facebook is an incredible resource for launching an idea…a movement. I know that there are some that are using it to create positive change, but not enough. Understand me, I do not think that Facebook needs more individuals to share cool quotes or their favorite scripture verses. I would love to see more people talking about what they are actually doing and how they are having an impact on the world! Less talk, more action. A lot more action.
Friends that are pastors and church leaders - I would like to see less inviting friends to join you at church and more talk of you inviting people to be the church. It would be so exciting to hear the stories of what people are doing rather than the great service they supposedly attended. I mean, if it really was a great message then how come I haven’t read any posts about them putting it into practice? Less talk about the amazing meetings and more talk of the fruit that is coming from a past meeting. I am not saying that this isn’t happening, I am just saying it would be great to hear it celebrated more often.
One guy that I see doing this is Shaun King. You may have never heard of him, but the man absolutely inspires me. Shaun King is a guy who is passionate about life and is leveraging social media to get others involved with what he is doing. It’s incredible. He is the person behind TwitChange, the first ever celebrity tweet auction that raises money for those in need. He has raised money to get tents to people in Haiti, used twitter to get head trauma doctors to help a little girl that was about to die without proper medical help, and he is constantly using social networking to challenge the church to be the church. His latest endeavor is TellTheMountaintoMove.Org, he wants to climb 7 of the tallest mountains in the world to raise awareness for 7 important causes. Check the guy out and I promise you will be inspired too.
The take away is this…DO SOMETHING!
You can personally make life a little better for someone else.
Write an encouraging message to someone you love.
Get healthy and encourage friends to join you.
Share a funny story and put a smile on someone’s face.
Create that non-profit that you have always dreamed of starting.
Shake the hand of a person that has served in our military and thank them.
Buy your wife some flowers.
Find someone that is doing something you are passionate about and get involved.
If you see a need, respond.
I don’t want Facebook to become all rainbows and unicorns. Facebook should be funny, real, and all about you. I would just like to see it get a little bit better. It’s amazing technology with untapped potential. Think of your Facebook friends as a mobile army and they are waiting for you to ask them to respond. The best thing about social media is we are the ones that get to decide if it’s good or bad.
Mother Teresa once said, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”
Go do something great. Not because I think you should…because you want to anyway.
Matter of fact, I have a dream of initiating a crowd response of “Mine! Mine! Mine” at a national sporting event while the game is going on. Totally random, but how funny would that be?
Think of your status updates like the fish in this illustration. It’s out in the open and has now become a point of interest. Now your friends on the book of faces begin noticing your update and will decide if they want it or not. Sometimes just a single bird says, “Mine” and sometimes it’s a Flock of Seagulls (80′s reference! WOO HOO!).
Every status update that you write or read is actually an opportunity to start a conversation and engage with others. I know that may seem pretty obvious, but a lot of times we miss the opportunity.
Here are a few thoughts on how to get the conversation going again.
1. Respond to what you read. I would assume that most of us read through our timeline from time to time to see what’s going on in the lives of our friends. If you want people to notice what you write, respond to what they write. I actually believe the ratio should be 60/40 or 70/30 of you responding to what others say before putting something of your own out there. It just seems courteous. It’s like being a good social networking listener.
2. Reply to people that comment on your status updates. If you are going to write a status update and people respond to it that means they connected in some way with what you said. That’s a good thing.
Imagine if you were out in public with someone and this happened…
Person 1 “I just found out that I am related to Superman. How cool is that?”
Person 2 “That’s really cool. I used to wear my underwear on the outside of my pants and act like I was Superman as a kid.”
Person 1 just stares back at person 2 and never responds back
OR
Person 1 “Can you believe what happened tonight on the Jersey Shore? Scandalous!”
Person 2 “I know! I cried myself to sleep I was so upset! Snookie is the smartest girl to ever walk the earth!”
Person 1 walks away in the middle of Person 2 speaking
I chose two scenarios that I am sure we have all experienced. Let’s assume that Facebook is not your personal diary. If we put something on there we are expecting that people are going to read it and acknowledge it. We should simply reply back. I am not saying that we should respond to every single comment we get on our Facebook page or status updates, I just think we should respond more often that we don’t. It’s like someone giving you a gift and then saying thank you. That’s all.
3.It might be time to release some birds.
If you have people that you have to block because you hate what they say, it might be time to set them free.
If you have people that you secretly hope don’t succeed in life, it might be time to set them free.
If you have people that you would never respond to anything they say and don’t really want them to respond to anything you say, it might be time to set them free.
If you have people that you can’t remember how you even know them it might be time to set them free.
If you have people that you wouldn’t even send the obligatory “Happy Birthday!” to even though Facebook reminded you to. It might be time to let them go.
We all have close friends and acquaintances. We are always going to have some people we are closer to than others and there is nothing wrong with that. I just think that it’s not a bad idea from time to time to go through your Facebook friends and let some people go free again. I am not saying that you should delete people just because you don’t want to ask for forgiveness or say you are sorry. That’s petty. There are just people from time to time that we realize we aren’t really even friends at all. I know it’s awkward to unfriend someone. That just seems bad. The good news is that they have probably been wanting to unfriend you too and were just hoping you would do it first.
Again, these are just my thoughts. Love them or hate them. I am just giving my opinion. I have some of the best friends on the planet and I love seeing what’s happening in the lives of those I care about all over the world. It’s all pretty amazing when you think about it. I just want to make sure I use technology well instead of letting it use me. Facebook can be a time waster or, if you are intentional, it can be an incredible resource for relationship building. You choose.
“I hate people that tell me they will be here at 8 pm to hang out with me and then don’t show up.”
“Sounds like everyone had a great day. My day was the worst day ever!”
“My family is PURE EVIL!”
“Insert any political comment that assumes everyone thinks like you and those that don’t are stupid.”
We have all been a Debbie Downer before. We have all written something that we shouldn’t have from time to time.
Maybe it’s unintentional.
Maybe it’s a cry for help.
Maybe we are just miserable and have set a goal to make sure we at least make one more person miserable each day through the use of Facebook so we don’t feel alone.
I don’t know about you, but when my social network timeline looks more like the National Enquirer and TMZ had a baby, I tend to stay away for awhile.
You can use Facebook however you want, but here are a few thoughts on how not to be a Debbie Downer.
1. If you see a status update of a friend who is sharing about an enjoyable experience they had, don’t be the person that writes, “How come I wasn’t invited?”. I think your comment is the answer to why you didn’t get invited. They wanted to have fun! In reality, it probably wasn’t malicious and they didn’t make the decision to exclude you. They just had a fun time with some other friends. Be happy for them! Then, once you turn you are off Facebook, you can be jealous and bitter about it.
2. Please don’t write the status update that directly or indirectly slams another person. If the comment is directed at one person, then call or direct message that person. Putting it on Facebook is like putting up a live video feed of an intersection that you know is about to have a huge wreck for all of us to watch. I shouldn’t be looking, but I can’t take my eyes away. The indirect ones seem to be what I struggle the most with. They always give me a complex and make me think it’s about me. Not because I think everything is about me, it’s just that I know I make mistakes all of the time and it could easily be about me. The worst part of that is finding out who you may be writing about, if it isn’t me, is really none of my business in the first place. Stay away from status updates that turn your friends into detectives that have to uncover the clues to a mystery they have no business solving!
3.Try not to ever hijack someone’s status update to share something that’s better.
“I just found out I got a $5 raise at work”
Comment – “I just got a $25,000 raise at work and won $3.1 Million by playing the lottery. Congrats!”
“So proud of our daughter. She just sang at her first talent show.”
Comment – “Awww…how cute. Our daughter was recognized as gifted vocally at the age of 2 and is her CD is now the fastest selling ever on iTunes.”
These comments are a little over the top, but you know what I mean. I know that you are excited about all of the great things that are happening in your life and you should be! Just be careful not to make a comment on someone’s status update that makes you the star of the show. If your friend is excited to be going to England for vacation, they might not want to hear that you lived there for 3 years and hated it. The key here would be to remember it’s not your status update…it’s theirs!
4. Do your best to not write status updates that make us fear for your life. If you really are that lonely and depressed maybe the best thing for you would be to get off the computer and get around some people that love you. Remember Facebook relationships are not totally real relationships. It’s like Tron, but different. When I read something depressing that someone I care about wrote online, I tend to try to respond to them offline. I know what you are writing may be true, but it doesn’t mean that’s the write place to put it. I think you need a different outlet might be healthier for you and for your friends on the Book of Faces.
5. Be weary of the political comments. It’s ok to talk politics. I would just say that if you are going to say something that could be politically polarizing you should expect people to disagree with you. The key would be to allow for disagreements and to have an open dialogue. You should treat it like a conversation and not a cage fight. Once you start to attack someone else’s point of view or treat someone like they are stupid for not thinking like you do, you have officially become a Debbie Downer.
Those are 5 thoughts on how to not become a Debbie Downer. They are in no particular order of importance and I am sure that there are plenty of things I missed. Please understand, these are all things that I have done in the past. I am not pointing fingers at ANYBODY!! If you are reading this and think that I am writing about you, it’s not true. See this as a fun blog post with a little bit of truth sprinkled in for us all to think about.
I remember the first time someone told me about Myspace, I could hardly wait to get home and see what it was all about. I used to spend hours on it, trying to reconnect with old friends, sprucing up my profile and finding the perfect song for people to listen to when they landed on my page. When I made the jump to Facebook I started a similar process all over again…and then again with Twitter. It was fun getting reacquainted with people and getting updated on what’s happening in their lives. When a friend would write something, I was always quick to try to respond. It seemed to me like every status update I read was an opportunity to start a conversation and I loved it.
Then things began to change for me…
I remember adding friends that I barely even knew.
The kid that I had a class with in 4th grade.
The friend of a friend that I met at a pool party. We didn’t really know each other, but the book of faces told us we should be friends and now we are.
On Twitter it was much worse. I quickly began following people and people began following me right back.
Lots of people.
People I do not know….at all.
The crazy part? I thought it was really cool.
Then one day the conversations died.
Status updates stacked upon status updates. Reading through my Facebook timeline became tiresome and on Twitter I had to create groups just to keep up with what was happening. Now when I type a status update I don’t expect to even get a response and I rarely comment on what my friends write. Social media became nothing more than a time waster for me.
I am not ok with that. Are you?
I believe the best part of social media is the SOCIAL part.
I want to get back to that.
I want to be engaged in conversations with those I care about and care about me.
I want to see people leverage social media for something good. Really good. I know there are people that already are and that excites me!
Over the next couple of days I am going to share some of my ideas about how to use social media well.
Please take a moment to share with me some of your thoughts or frustrations with social media?
I know that I struggle with blogging consistently. Let me give you a glimpse as to a couple of reasons why.
1. My wife and kids are my priority. When life gets hectic, the first thing to go for me is blogging and social media. I think Facebook, Twitter or just surfing around on the interwebs can be a great time waster. As I learn how to best leverage technology, I use it and then walk away from it all the time.
2. I am concerned about what I might write. I honestly don’t want to offend anyone. But the truth is some of the most interesting things for me to write about would be what I read or hear from others that I disagree with. That could lead to me hurting some people I really like. I don’t want to do that…do I?
3. I don’t want to be too honest. It would be nice to write EXACTLY how I am feeling. I just think that it could be a little shocking at times and also a little inappropriate. But it might be therapeutic for me too. Hmm….
Ultimately, I need to blog. I have so much going on in my brain and I need to find an outlet for it.
I am a creative individual.
I have thoughts, ideas, dreams, passions and just crazy randomness that I need to get out of my system.
I decided to takemost of last week off from the bloggy blog because of a last second, mini-family vacation. I am committed to being consistent about blogging, but family comes first.
It’s been a great two weeks for me personally. I have been eating much healthier than I have in the past. Sure, I have made a few choices here and there that weren’t the wisest, but for the most part I am doing much better in this department.
In regards to exercise, I haven’t been pushing myself like I should be right now. I could make a bunch of excuses as to why I am not working out as much as I should, but it’s just an excuse and I need to do a better job of controlling my schedule.
I enjoy writing this weekly update for accountability. I don”t like that I set goals and then don’t complete them. This is a way for me to track my progress and push myself. Exercise/Eating right has to be one of the weaker areas of my life and I am glad that I am working to fix that. I just need to continue to remember that it all takes time.
Saying all of that, I have lost a total of 3 pounds in two weeks.
I will take the weight loss. At least I am still moving in the right direction.
This week I need to ramp up the exercise again and continue to make healthier food choices. It shouldn’t be to hard to get a little sweat going since it’s going to be over 100 degrees all week here.
I have done a few P90x workouts over the last couple of weeks and I am planning on starting that program today. This should be interesting.
Thanks again for the motivation and for those of you that are trying to improve yourselves as well.
How are all of you doing about exercising/eating healthier?
