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It feels like a science experiment kind of day! So come with me into the science lab, and let’s see what we can learn…
I want you to take out your cell phone. Then go in and open up one of your favorite social media apps. Scroll through the comments on a few of the posts on your wall. What stands out to you? Are there certain comments that catch your eye? And then which of those seem to get your heart pumping faster than normal?
With my science hat on, I am going to make a prediction. I am going to create a ‘hypothesis’ about the comments that stand out to you. I predict that the ones you can’t stop reading are the negative, hateful ones. If I had to guess, I bet that the nice comments often get overlooked. Yet those bad ones, they sure do seem to jump off the page.
Am I right? Is my ‘hypothesis’ correct? Because let’s face it, we can receive 1,000 genuine compliments and one hateful remark, yet it will be the hateful part of the story that we focus all of our energy on. And I feel that I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out what motivates someone to even shell out that kind of cruelty. To dish out unkind words that will forever stick in our brains. Haven’t they ever heard of the saying, “If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all.”
And then this makes me wonder ever more…
Why are some people so mean? Why do certain people always seem to project hate? How come some will say the most awful words to others? And why do the worst comments tend to show up on all our crazy social media platforms?
I seriously don’t get it.
It’s hard enough living this way as adults, but now put yourself in our children’s shoes. In today’s world, they are living their life through these apps. It’s no wonder why they struggle with image, self-esteem, and this obsessive need to have ‘followers’…to have everyone ‘like’ them. As a young child myself, I remember having a compulsive need to have everyone in my life ‘like’ me too. Now I didn’t have a heart icon for them to click to give me that affirmation, but let me tell you, I desired it just the same. It was exhausting trying to get everyone in my small, little world to approve of me. (Heck, I have even caught myself bring this trait with me into adulthood!)
But recently I have sensed a shift within myself. It’s this shift where the thought of someone not ‘liking’ me really doesn’t bother me as much anymore. Instead, it has me thinking of only two words. Do you know what they are yet? Have you guessed it? It’s these important words that need to always be in our head when haters are near. But more importantly, we also need to teach our youth to use these words right now…as they obsessively skim their social media walls to get the affirmation they are looking for…
So hopefully you have figured it out by now, but if not, here are the words we need to remember as the haters close in. These two very important words of…
“Oh Well…”
I am going to repeat this one. It’s just that significant! ”Oh…Well!” And two other words that will work…” Who…Cares!”
Are you with me on this? It took me awhile to get here, and maybe you were here a long time ago. But I can tell you who isn’t in this same place, and it’s our children. Because our youth today are living much differently than we did. They must live with not just trying to get approval from their small, little world, but they are trying to seek approval from this great big world. Talk about exhausting! I can’t even imagine.
So how did I make this shift? What helped me that I hope, in turn, will help you and your children that are struggling with this too? It was when a wise friend of mine once reminded me (when I was upset) that not everybody is going to be on my side…and that is okay. It doesn’t matter how nice we are to everyone, it doesn’t matter how much we try to stick to our own business, and it certainly doesn’t matter how much we want others to like us. No matter what we do in life, we will always have haters because like that famous line reads…” Haters are always going to hate.” And we can’t change that.
So what can we change? What can we teach our children to help them through the unkindness in this world? We can start by reminding them (and ourselves) to ‘control the controllables’. We can’t control how someone feels about us, BUT we can control how we react to it…which should be with grace and humor. It’s the only way to keep our mental freedom when dealing with our self-image! We can’t control what others will say, BUTwe can control how we will let it impact us…which should be with a ‘who cares’ attitude. It’s the only way to have freedom when thinking about our self-esteem! And most importantly, we can’t control who will ‘follow’ or ‘like’ us, BUT we can control how we are going to let it influence us…with our famous two words of ‘oh well’. It’s the only way to ultimately win this freedom we all so desperately need from our social media world!
So, with my science hat on and from our experiment today, I urge you all to prove my hypothesis wrong. Prove this, as you scroll through your wall and ignore all of the cruel comments you see. Because remember, haters will always hate, but we don’t have to let them win. We don’t have to let them take our mental freedom away. Not everyone in life is going to like us. Not everyone is going to be on our side. And all we should ever say to that is…
”Oh Well! I don’t care anyway.”
Xoxo
Marsha
*For those of you struggling with something in life or have a topic of interest that you want me to talk about in this blog, email me at BeYourBestSelfBlog@gmail.com. Let’s work together to Be Our Best Selves!
Photo Credit: Photo by Shamia Casiano: https://www.pexels.com/photo/hi-haters-scrabble-tiles-on-white-surface-944743/