Image courtesy of Stuart Miles FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do any of you remember the saying, “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar”?  We could sure use this old saying in today’s world.  I try to approach everything I do or people I encounter with a positive attitude.  Trust me, some days are so hard, but I keep pushing forward.  One of the reasons I changed my thinking about life was when I became a mother.  I wanted my girls to be positive and be kind to people and I wanted them to see me dealing with people in that manner as well.  I haven’t been as successful as I should have, but I take every situation they witness as a teachable lesson.  This is part of the reason they don’t have any social media accounts yet, I know what’s out there and I want to keep it out of their lives as long as I can.  My youngest wants a Instagram account, only with my supervision.  You all know some of the foolishness that goes on with these social media platforms.

I belong to a natural hair group on Facebook, most of the women that post and share pictures are young women under 25.  Most of the time, I glance at their post and hit like on their pictures and keep it moving.   Some of those young women are so creative with their hairstyles, it’s one of the reasons I haven’t left the group.  This is one of my pet peeves about social media, we share too much personal information with people we don’t know.  Last week, one of the young ladies posted a picture of a married couple wearing an African inspired outfit.  She said that she shared the picture on her Instagram account and her fiance, who is white posted a comment saying that it would never happen and said “black power”.  She went on to talk about how they disagreed about what he said and what she could do to show him that he was wrong.  That became one of the longest threads I’ve ever seen, it was awful.  I even commented by saying that personal issues should be handled with the person, not Facebook.  Others agreed, but most people took the opportunity to attack the girl, her fiance and the situation.  The comments were negative and immature and the admin of the group had to finally remove the post.  

Why people chose to be negative on social media is just perplexing.  It’s a form of bullying to me, it gives them the ability to say the craziest things and hide behind their computer.  I will delete people and posts that are used to attack people or a situation.  It just isn’t necessary to be that way, some people are just miserable.  You don’t have to be super sweet, but use your social media accounts to pass along a little positive vibe every once in a while.  Trust me someone who needs a little encouragement will receive it and maybe thank you, like the post, or favorite it on their Twitter feed.  Who knows, we could be the only positive image that person get to see in their life for the day.  You never know what’s going on with someone behind the computer, tablet or smart phone.  

 Encouragement and supporting women have become a great concern of mine and what I try to share on my blog.  Social media isn’t going anywhere, it’s growing more and more.  I’m sure in the next 10 years there will be more platforms than the ones we have now.  Cyber bullying and negativity is serious, keep it off your accounts and let those bullies know you don’t have time for that.