THE ART OF DISCOVERY
No matter how you look at it, relationships are messy.
Social Media Relationships
Whenever you go out into the community, the store, work, school, or even just outside your house, you will be involved in relationship. We cannot escape it. All of us struggle with certain aspects of relationship with others.
Even still, some of the most meaningful relationships I have are with those where we have mutually done the hard work of communicating to gain under- standing by listening to each other. Any time invested in those relationships has been by far the best way to continue to grow in friendship. But in today’s culture, face time is a scarcity.
Without face time spent, we cannot expect to understand or be understood by others, which is the primary need that each of us has. This can and does get lost in the world of social media. We meet someone once or twice and then connect on social media. We can follow their posts and begin to think we “know” them because we see their life being played out in pictures and comments.
This has several pitfalls. One, people usually only post the highlights. It is very seldom that people show their true selves on social media. It is actually refreshing to see someone post something raw and emotional because of loss of a loved one or the hurt of a broken relationship.
The façade of “knowing” someone because we follow their posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and so forth, can be deceiving. There are some who get offended when they are not invited to a party because they are “friends” with you on social media and you actually know their brother or sister. There are still others who may think they have meaningful relationships with others just because they private message each other on a somewhat regular basis.
Social media is not bad. It is a connection to another human being after all, albeit a loose one. At the very least, this connection can become something valued when we actually spend time with them. The only caution is to not mistake a loose connection on social media for a meaningful relationship. We can become emotionally attached to the posts, videos, pictures, and status updates. This emotional connection may make it easier for a deeper face-to-face relationship, but we cannot mistake the emotional connection for a close friendship.
Which Brings Me Back to My Purpose
This book contains my observations throughout my own life of what it means to “love your neighbor as you love yourself.”