Sunset musings

My family and I were out running some errands late this afternoon, and at various points all throughout the time we spent driving from place to place I was commenting about how I thought the sunset was going to be pretty tonight. We started heading home and the sun started to set, and I continued making comments about the sunset to come. As often happens when watching pretty skies, as the sky grew prettier, I grew quieter and became pensive. In other words, I started thinking thoughtful thinks.

So now here I am - still peeking out the window every five seconds so as not to miss the beauty of the sky outside - to share those thoughts. (Sunset musings, if you will.)

I've been an avid sunset-chaser for about three years now. My mom has grown accustomed to receiving frantic texts from me as the day starts to draw to an end.

"MOM WE HAVE TO GET TO THE PIER RIGHT NOW TO CATCH THE SUNSET"

"WE SHOULD DRIVE OUT TO THE BEACH TONIGHT TO CATCH THE SUNSET"

"LET'S GO ON A WALK AND CATCH THE SUNSET"

And even though I have various favorite spots around town that I think are especially nice places to enjoy a beautiful Pensacola sunset, when all else fails, I always have my tried and true fallback - the backyard.

Desperate times, folks. Desperate times.

Sunsets are pretty much my favorite thing. Or at least they're very high on the list (perhaps underneath Captain Wentworth and Dunkin Donuts).

As I watch the sunset tonight though, I am reminded of this thought from Hebrews 13: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

One of the lessons I've learned over my high school years - which end in a week - EEEEP!! I digress... 

One of the lessons I've learned over my high school years is that people come and go, sometimes very unexpectedly. I've been thinking a lot about this as my friendships have changed over the last year especially.

I singled out one thought from many a moment ago as I was watching the beautiful sky, thinking about how many beautiful skies I must have seen in three years of sunset-chasing, thinking of all the different people that I've shared sunsets with, wondering who is in my future to share sunsets with...

No matter who I'm watching the sunset with, the sunset itself will never change.

No matter how much my life may change, or how many people come into my life or leave it, God will always be with me.

God sent the rainbow to Noah as a symbol of His promise.

In the same way, the sunset to me is a daily reminder of God's steadfast love. (And it just so happens to be a beautiful pink reminder - I can't complain!)

As I write these thoughts down, I remember how much I struggled through the last ten months or so, sometimes feeling like there was nothing in my life to be happy about. Even during those times, the sun continued to set in all its beauty and glory and God's love was all around me every day, sometimes the only tiny bit of beauty and pleasantness I could find. (I was a bit melodramatic, so sue me.)

I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, "Steadfast love will be built up forever; in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness." (Psalm 89:1-2)

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

PS: I hope you all saw the sunset tonight; it was glorious. ;)

Musings

My senior year is starting to wrap up (and by "wrap up" I mean that I just finished midterms and I still have about a billion things to do, but I'm thinking optimistically (Although technically we're past the halfway point, so anything beyond that should count as wrapping up (also yes, I just inserted a parenthetical statement within a parenthetical statement - I can do whatever I want).)).

I'm what would be called a toe-dipper - I'm not the kind to dive headfirst into much of anything. So as I was tentatively dipping my toes into the raging ocean of all the stuff I need to do to prepare for graduation in less than two months, I got a little bit overwhelmed.

From stressing over math tests to stressing over music competitions to stressing over what dress to buy for graduation to stressing over friends to stressing over...well, you get the idea.

In essence, I'm learning this basic truth about life: It can be very difficult at times.

Sometimes I almost scare myself with how much I think like a guy sometimes. In general, I'm pretty laid back about just about everything. However, I do have occasional lapses, and unfortunately, when I do finally slip into a stereotypical female mood, the emotional deluge I experience would probably remind my fellow Pensacola natives of our friend Ivan from 2004.

Yeah, it's bad.

Stress triggers these emotional hurricanes for me, so I've had several this year. In the midst of one about a month ago, I found such comfort in these words from Lamentations 3.

My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Over the last month I've thought of that passage many times, and I've thought specifically about several different lines, but yesterday I was thinking about this line: "[His mercies] are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

His mercies are new every morning. Just as each day is new and unique, so are His mercies for that day.

I tend to think with this verse that it means that the day is going to be amazing and I'm always going to have an emotional high and my heart will be overflowing with joy and praise and love for my God.

Not so much...

Sometimes God's mercies are only just what I need to get through the day. Sometimes He gives much more. But the sweet promise is constant: GREAT is His faithfulness. EVERY DAY His mercies are new, never ending.

They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Some days I'll mount up with wings like an eagle, some days I'll run, and some days I'll walk. But He leadeth me, oh blessed thought.

All the way my Savior leads me;

What have I to ask beside?

Can I doubt His tender mercy,

Who through life has been my guide?

Heav'nly peace, divinest comfort,

Here by faith in Him to dwell!

For I know, whate'er befall me,

Jesus doeth all things well;

For I know, whate'er befall me,

Jesus doeth all things well.

The End (?)

Are you guys sick of me yet?

Clearly not, because you're here. (Which reminds me, if you are still here, I think you're pretty great.)

Anyways, this post is going to be a follow-up to my recent post from exactly one month ago about my decision to get off social media (I mean this one). 

To clarify, yes, I'm back on social media to some extent now, but I'm being careful with it.

Honestly I feel almost like a recovering addict. I'm distinctly aware of how easy it would be to slip back into all of the drama that I was trying to escape, and I really don't want that to happen.

So here are the things that I learned during my hiatus, and how I plan to act accordingly.

1. While I was gone, I got things done in real life.

I didn't even miss getting my daily Facebook fix while I was gone, because I was too busy doing homework and practicing piano and reading good books and reading stupid books and running and going to the gym and drawing and painting and cleaning out my closet and writing and thinking deep thoughts and listening to awesome music and going outside and shopping and drinking coffee and taking pictures just to take pictures without posting them and actually talking to people with my mouth and GUESS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU AREN'T OBSESSED WITH YOUR FAKE INTERNET LIFE?

You start truly living your life in the real world. And the real world is kind of an awesome and beautiful place.

How will this affect my future use of social media? Well, that's easy enough: I'm cutting way back on Internet and getting as much real life as I can.

2. While I was gone, I realized that all I missed was the attention.

Let's face it: social media gives us the chance to make people pay attention to us, and we enjoy that. Getting tons of likes on a post makes me feel important and popular.

But really, how pathetic does that make me?

(Side note: Girls, I promise you are beautiful and valuable. I've been there. I know that if I'm feeling a little down in the dumps, posting a selfie with a witty caption is a surefire way to get tons of immediate validation from all my followers who all totally care about me in real life (*cough* sarcasm *cough*) You don't need scads of likes and shallow compliments, because you shouldn't be measuring your beauty and worth by how much attention you get on Instagram. *steps off soapbox* *steps back onto different soapbox*)

Like I said before, I did a lot of stuff while I was busy not constantly checking Facebook, and while I was doing all this fantastic stuff I discovered a quote from who-knows-who that I thought was interesting. (Dear Who-Knows-Who, I am giving you the best citation I can manage - you would make it easier for me to give credit where credit is due if you would put your name on your work.)

"Your worth is not measured in likes, comments, notes or followers; but in your ability to love, keep comments to yourself, take note and lead." - Who-Knows-Who

Once I got past my frustration with Who-Knows-Who's choice not to utilize the Oxford comma, I realized that I had gotten ridiculously caught up in the numbers involved in social media. I could tell you in a heartbeat which of my Instagram photos has scored the most likes. And while I still think it's cool to get a lot of likes, I'm trying to change my attitude about it. My focus needs to be real people in real life and trying to show real love to real people, not selfishly trying to get followers that I don't even know to like pictures that don't even matter.

So how am I dealing with this? Mainly I'm just trying to be conscious about the motives behind my posts being right. I'm specifically trying not to have such an elitist attitude about my Instagram feed. Maybe one of these days I'll even post a #nofilter photo... I'm also cutting back on how much I check my Instagram. (This was accomplished almost involuntarily when I downloaded that Disney Tsum Tsum game and became immediately, hopelessly addicted.)

3. While I was gone, I missed some important stuff.

It wouldn't be fair of me to only bash social media. While I was gone I definitely noticed some things about it that were beneficial and made my life a little easier. For example, I've been in charge of planning events for my graduating class, and I missed some time-sensitive communications from folks in the group who didn't have any other way to contact me. Different social media sites offer some great ways to make easy connections with people, and that's generally a good thing.

Plus, we all know Facebook is the number one way to confirm someone's relationship status. Who knows how many engagements and officially-becoming-a-things I missed in a month? (A brief note here: This one is 50/50 in my book because there's a fine line between legitimate curiosity and downright nosiness.)

I know that for "business purposes", I kind of need to be on Facebook so I'm available to people. But I also have a tendency to get carried away on Facebook. One thing leads to another, and before I know it, a "quick check" turns into a two-hour stalkfest. 

How I chose to deal with this is that I chose not to give myself easy access to Facebook from my phone. I do have the Facebook messenger on my phone so I don't miss any important messages anymore, but in forcing myself to either get on the computer or use my phone's snail-paced Internet browser, I've managed to eliminate almost all desire to check Facebook. I generally get on once or twice a day now. (So if I like something you post, either I'm totally stalking you or your post just happened to show up at the very top of my news feed.)

Those are the three big things that I realized about my social media use during my break. Despite the fact that I'm back now, taking a complete break for a few weeks was wonderfully refreshing. I would highly recommend some time away to anyone who is interested to get a new perspective on social media use. I hold true to my previous statement that the most important thing to keep in mind is that social media sites create an artificial environment. Once you start having more of your interactions in real life, it becomes obvious how little worth those Internet connections truly have.

I honestly feel like this is a huge issue that a lot of people struggle with, so I sincerely hope that something that I've said will strike a chord with someone, and that I'll be able to help in some small way.

I think this will be the last post about my whole journey with social media self-discovery and all (I'm still not a hippie, I promise). I imagine you guys are ready for me to talk about something else already (I know I am). This has been kind of a fun little venture into the world of serious blogging, but I do hope to return to more light-hearted topics in the near future. *much rejoicing*

Until then, everyone's assignment is to go outside and do something cool - and not Instagram about it.

Unprepared

I would never tell you I'm a procrastinator, but I'm starting to think my subconscious is. I generally do some sort of post that tips its virtual hat to traditional New Year's goings on.

(This is what the virtual hat looks like, in case you were wondering. Dapper monocle dog not included.)

However, I have generally done this hat-tipping post a little closer to January 1st... Generally by now I've already given up on any silly resolutions that I've made and I'm so over the new year.

HOWEVER

I'm actually still pretty excited about this year. Even though school starts this week and I'm having difficulty coping with that, I think this will be an interesting year (hopefully in a good way).

(Oh and in case my last gargantuan post scared you, this one will be as short and to the point as I can manage - fear not.)

I know I have some big and scary things ahead of me this year, but what really intimidates me about this coming year is that not only will I be dealing with some pretty big stuff, no matter how thoroughly I think I have prepared for my future, I still know not what a day may bring forth. And if there's one thing I hate, it's not knowing what I'm doing. Nothing throws me like being in an unfamiliar situation and not knowing what to expect or what's expected of me.

As I consider how clueless I really am about my future, I think about the story of Job in the Bible. I doubt if Job woke up one day and thought, "Wow, today is the day that God will take away the people I love most and all of my worldly possessions, casting me into such deep depression that I resent the day that I was born."

It certainly hasn't been my experience that God lets me know every struggle that I'll face ahead of time. But I also don't think that I want to know.

One common characteristic among humans is a blissful lack of awareness of how weak we are. This combined with "common sense" telling us to prepare for our future as much as possible leads me to the conclusion that if we knew everything we would have to deal with ahead of time, we would foolishly try to handle it in our own strength. 

And undoubtedly, we would fail.

So even if Job had known ahead of time how God was going to try him, what could he have done differently that would have helped? (Trick question - the answer is nothing.)

I've read a lot of stories about people who have accomplished amazing things, and it always strikes me kind of funny when one of those people says, "I didn't know it couldn't be done, so I just did it!"

I feel like that's kind of how we should approach our uncertain future. Yeah, there are going to be things dropped on me that I'm not expecting right now. (Mainly because all I'm expecting right now is to struggle through calculus class, make an idiot of myself in public speaking, graduate in May, and start college in the fall - so there's lots of room in my year for unexpected situations.)

We don't know what's going to happen, so we can't possibly know how to prepare for it completely.

But returning to Job, here's something I can know.

Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food. But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back? What he desires, that he does. For he will complete what he appoints for me, and many such things are in his mind. (Job 23:8-14)

My Savior is faithful, and His strength is made perfect to me in weakness. The Bible even teaches us to rejoice in our infirmities because Christ is magnified in us when we're weak.

Luck may favor the prepared, but God favors those who trust in Him.

So yes, I'm a leetle nervous about what might happen this year, but I also realize that while God will do what He will do, I won't have to handle it alone. Which is good, because I'm starting to realize that I'm kind of bad at things that are actually important.

I'm going to rip off last year's hat-tipping post and continue my decision that rather than making resolutions for the new year, I'm going to focus on a principle that I really want to remember through this year. 

I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. (Psalm 77:11-12)

God is always faithful.

Pick Your Battles

This is kind of a culmination of several posts that I almost did over the past month and a half. Originally I felt awful because I was being such a terrible blogger and not sharing my thoughts with my dear readers (all two of you), but now I'm kind of glad I didn't. I always do better work when I've let something that bothers me sit and fester for a little while. This has been greatly bothering me, and it's had a very long time to sit and fester, so if I hold true to past performance, this post should be a masterpiece.

In general, I think social media is more trouble than it's worth (which is why - after deleting a couple of my social media apps and redownloading them and deleting them and redownloading them, along with the conclusion I came to which I will state at some point in this post if I ever mange to escape from the grips of this terrible run-on sentence - I chose to pretty much get off social media for the foreseeable future). Many people agree that social media is not a positive influence; however, in my extensive research (aka top results on Google) the main issues people have with social media include invasions of privacy, excessive wasting of time, and exposure to bad grammar (Um, well. You're not wrong.).

However, it seems to me that social media causes problems that are much more serious than the possibility that the difference between "your" and "you're" will be forgotten forever. While that would indeed be a tragic day for the English language, I see my peers losing more than an appreciation for the nuances of our lexicon because of social media use. 

I see their self esteem shattering.

I see their confidence being lost.

I see their relationships suffering because of insecurity.

(Oh yeah, and me too.)

I realize that these are common issues that teenagers have faced for years, even before social media was a part of our culture. While this is true, teens have never before dealt with them to the extreme that they do today. 

In case you're still skeptical, I assure you that as established in my previous posts, I'm pretty much an expert on all things social media. However, being a teenage girl on social media, I have an especially expansive knowledge of how teenage girls use social media. I did a little casual research (which I actually didn't know was research at the time to be honest) and discovered simultaneously not only teenage girls' number one use for social media, but also what I believe is the number one cause of the problems I just mentioned.

Every time I get together with any of my girlfriends, at some point in our conversation one or both of us will bring up the people who have been our latest Internet stalking victims. Let's be honest, ladies - we all do it.

I used to think that social media stalking was completely innocent and harmless (unless of course you like someone's photo from four years ago, in which case you are doomed), but after seeing its effect on me and my friends, I'm convinced that it absolutely is not.

Personally, I don't really have issues with self confidence. I guess I'm just too clueless and out of it to realize when something I do isn't "cool," and I've accepted that people are different and that some people will like me and some people won't, and that's that. However, most teenage girls do struggle with self esteem in one way or another, and the way most girls use social media only encourages this.

I'm super picky about my Instagram photos and I carefully monitor my page all the time to make sure that everything clicks and looks appropriately artsy and that I'm presenting myself exactly the way I want to, and I've found that this is pretty typical with most girls on Instagram. 

Instagram noobs being all, "X Pro II or Valencia" got us like:

On average it takes me about thirty minutes to do an Instagram post. 

After careful deliberation, I decide whether or not it's been long enough since my last post that I can post without people thinking that I have no life outside Instagram. Then I painstakingly select a photo, basing my decision on my previous posts so I don't have too many of one kind of photo. After all, variety is the spice of life - even my fake Internet life. Then I go through a ridiculously long series of editing apps to make sure that my photo is perfect. Then I comb through thousands of quotes and song lyrics on Pinterest in search of one that I can pretend is meaningful. After posting, I watch like a hawk to make sure I'm meeting my like quota. If I don't get "enough" likes, I sneak back after a couple days and delete the photo, ashamed and determined to "do better" next time. This is how most girls roll on Instagram, and the result is a ton of seemingly perfect profiles. 

It's amazing how easy it is to get access to total strangers on Instagram. Not only is it easy, but Instagram's "Explore" page practically encourages you to go check out as many people as you can.

And sure, they're total strangers, but COME ON - their eyeliner game is totally ON POINT. My eyeliner game is NEVER THAT ON POINT AND IT NEVER WILL BE.

Eyeliner is harmless enough (and if you're lucky enough that that's your only trouble, all I have to say to you is that practice makes perfect). 

But when you compare your entire life to this other person's best representation of theirs, it's easy to feel like you just don't measure up. But for some reason, it's insanely difficult to just not look at the things that make you feel bad about yourself. 

The thing that I hate most about social media is that it can give grossly inaccurate impressions. People pick and choose what they want to put out there to represent themselves, and it's easy to lose sight of the fact that even though their life looks perfect based off of their online profiles, they're human and they have imperfections and things that they don't like about themselves just like you. They could be losing sleep every night stalking your profile, wishing they could be like you - just like you do with them.

IT ISN'T REAL. 

While I don't struggle with self esteem, I have huge issues with being insecure of my relationships. I attribute this to an unfortunate mix of personality traits and character flaws, but whatever insecurity I feel outside of social media is magnified by like, a million as soon as social media becomes involved.

One of my personality traits/character flaws is that I tend to be jealous. While my friends agree that I am "the chillest person on earth," I decidedly lose my chill when I get jealous. I know that jealousy causes problems in relationships anyway, and I struggled with it even before I got involved in social media.

If you can relate to me at all on the jealousy thing, social media is not for you. 

Similarly to the false impression thing I mentioned earlier, social media gives you twisted ideas of how your friends interact with other people. This can be damaging to friendships, but I've seen it completely ruin more-than-friendships.

I used to think that people talking about how communication and trust are vital in order for any relationship to succeed were just reciting cliches, but as I've had more experience with my own relationships and indirectly with others', I've come to realize that it really is that simple.

Simple? Yes. Easy? Not at all.

But as difficult as it is to develop communication and trust in real life, it's even harder on social media, and to be honest, I wonder if it's even possible.

Here's an example:

Billy sees Susie's witty status, chuckles, and likes it, blissfully unaware of the impending chaos this innocent little like will cause.

Sally, Billy's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, loses it when she sees that Billy liked Susie's status and after completely overthinking everything, assumes that Billy and Susie have been talking constantly behind her back and that Billy wants to ditch her for Susie. To avoid the embarrassment of being ditched for another girl, Sally texts Billy and breaks up with him.

All because Billy thought Susie said something funny.

While Sally rationally knows that of course Billy isn't interested in Susie because in reality he never sees her or talks to her or has any sort of meaningful connection with her, seeing them interact with that person on social media gave Susie a false impression of the extent of their relationship.

I don't think that I can even scratch the surface of how despicable social media has become to me lately. Does it have potential to be good? Possibly. Has it done me any good (other than giving me the opportunity to share this blog with more people)? Nope.

The only meaningful impact that I see social media having is overwhelmingly negative.

I don't want to sound like a hippie, but negativity is not something you need in your life, especially when that negativity is completely contrived.

So if you find yourself feeling not good enough because of all the "perfect" people you see on Instagram, get off Instagram.

If you find yourself obsessing over every minute detail of your relationships, overthinking and freaking out all the time because of seeing your friends' Internet interactions with people who aren't you, do whatever you need to do to stop seeing those interactions (and probably also work on that deeper-rooted jealousy issue too).

I've been doing some pretty drastic rethinking regarding my personal social media usage. Initially I started by just unfollowing people who I didn't care to keep up with and deleting people whose interactions with others caused me to feel insecure. But I found that I couldn't just stop checking up on everyone. I wasn't addicted by any means, but I don't think that it would be inaccurate to say that I was obsessed.

But how stupid is it to continue to be obsessed with something that drags you down daily?

That's why I'm officially off social media for as long as it takes for me to get my attitude changed.

I don't want to be one of those people who has an on-again, off-again relationship with social media, either.

I saw a meme one time that said that getting off social media is the grown-up equivalent to a kid running away from home - people only do it for attention, and everybody knows they'll be back right away. That's definitely been accurate for most of my friends who've "gotten off." (Yeah, they're all back now.)

I'm not doing this to get attention. I'm doing this because I'm in control of what I allow into my life, and reality is hard enough without letting unnecessary, contrived, artificial drama to permeate my life.

As a Christian, I try to make decisions in my life based off of biblical principles. These are the passages that most influenced me to make the decision to remove social media from my life.

 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil. (Proverbs 4:23-27)

 “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:23, 31)

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

Social media sounds suspiciously like something the Bible says to avoid, and even more suspiciously unlike something true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, or worthy or praise. Consequently, I simply couldn't justify continuing to allow it in my life to the extent that I have previously.

If you can stalk on social media to the glory of God, good for you. All it does for me is encourage jealousy, which ultimately hurts me, which is definitely not a good example of me keeping my heart.

I was a little more transparent in this post than I generally choose to be. While I didn't have it in mind while writing this post, it makes me think of a quote from Ernest Hemingway that seems to be somewhat fitting for how I chose to approach this subject: "Write hard and clear about what hurts."

Social media has hurt me indescribably. It's damaged my trust, it's encouraged manipulative behavior,  and it's made me angry at people I love, all without good reason or justification.

In life you have to pick your battles, and right now I'm choosing to battle with reality first.