Journaling vs Social Networking

I’ve decided to start journaling again. Some people have no idea what journaling is. Let me explain. Journaling (for me) is the act of chronicling personal life events and feelings that you need to get out for your own personal wellbeing, but you don’t want to, or shouldn’t talk about to other people. It is the words that you can never take back. You may say, but you all ready have a blog.  I do… but the information I share on the blog I don’t mind sharing with people. Yes, it may be difficult at first, but I look at it as a form of group therapy. Journaling is a personal therapy session with me.  There are some things that just should not be posted on any social networking site, THAT children, is what journaling is for.

 

I understand that NOT posting something on a social networking site may seem foreign to some people.  So may the following analogy on why you would not want to post EVERYTHING on a social networking site… but I’m still going to attempt it….

 

Think for a moment… to a time when people didn’t have clothes dryers (I know, I may have lost many of you all ready… but try to use your imagination… again I understand that also may be foreign…if it is, just Google it before you continue). People would put their freshly cleaned laundry out on clothes lines outside to dry in the wind and sun. They would keep their damn stained underwear on a drying rack in the house… so that their neighbors wouldn’t see it. 

 

Posting everything on a social networking site is like putting your damn stained underwear on a clothes line. No one really one really wants to see it… but once it is seen you can be damn sure that your neighbors are going to judge you and talk about it when you aren’t around.

 

I’m not going to say that I haven’t been guilty of missing a stain and putting panties out on the clothes line per say…  Or maybe I’ve been so preoccupied with other things that I didn’t care. It has happened. I know I’ve been judged. I know I’ve been talked about (and almost reprimanded at a job for it…but that was many years ago). I’m not going to say it isn’t going to happen again, but it may be time to start being a little more conscious. I am aware that I’ve complained about my mother frequently, and called her what some people feel are quite horrific names. For those who truly know me, that really isn’t dirty laundry, but that flower on the crotch of my panties may look like a stain to some…

 

Why do I bring this up? I have several reasons. (I like lists; I have OCD, which has never been a secret).

a)      Some people dear in my life have learned to keep private things private. I was in awe and impressed by the maturity and thought put into that decision

b)      I have started to blog, and almost posted things that would cause horrific changes in the lives of myself and others and stopped (ok, so a dramatic way of saying I’ve typed things that if posted could never be taken back).

c)       As adults we need to teach children NOT to post everything… we can help prevent some children from being bullied if they would just stop over sharing.

1)      Sick people in this world will use this information to hurt our children (yes, I know that I don’t have children… I use our children as a phrase for all children).

2)      Sick people will use this to exploit our children (a half naked picture of young children, taken by their own phones is marketable).

3)      Sick people abduct other people based on things they see online. This goes for adults and children. We need to be smart when we “Check-in” or post pictures.

d)      We need to remember when to shut the hell up when nothing good will come of what we share. We don’t need to start drama. There is enough of it in the world all ready.

 

I’m hoping that journaling will keep me from allowing social networking to make me as socially inept (as many people have become). As a society we no longer know how to act in social situations. We have reverted to our pubesant days when we have more frienemies than real friends.

 

I’m going to try to go back to the days before social networking when you stuck by your friends because you knew their real character, and they knew mine. Journaling will help me with this. I won’t hurt feelings because someone I don’t really know “says” something to or about someone I’ve known for years.  Journaling will also allow me to not be THAT person to someone else.

 

(On a side note, I’m not against all social networking. I have reconnected with REAL friends through social networking. I have been humbled by some of my own past actions. I am in awe of forgiveness and graciousness that others have shown to me, which I did not deserve in several instances.  I don’t want to make steps backwards in those or any relationships).