Who Cares?

Just try your best. Be the best. Be your best self. What does that even mean? I have many books from back in my twenty something days that claim to give you the key, but I have yet to really understand it.

We chant it to our children and ourselves… at soccer games, during homework time, at board meetings, and when we get out of bed in the morning but how do we gage it? In current times has it become the culmination of edited instagram photos, facebook likes and perfectly crafted postings? Kim Kardashian may tell you Yes! Don’t get me wrong, I am head over heels obsessed with photography and images and all the magical styling beauty that goes into those breaktaking snapshots, but does this really portray who we are? When we scroll through our smartphone pics deciding which image to filter, caption and post do we ever pick the photo of us with putting kids in time out, wearing sweat pants and a dirty bun with half open eyes and some killer adult acne. Maybe we scroll past the one showcasing our not so fine lines and thinning hair.

Do you ever tell your tantruming child to hold on a second so you can grab your phone and take a selfie because, c’mon folks that is a postable moment.

We live in this amazingly wild and weird time where any piece of information we could ever want is right at our fingertips and we too can share our thoughts with the world. If you develop a cough you can google it and find 50 different diagnoses sure to lead you to your death. You can pin the most eloquent 1st birthday party plans for a child who will never remember it but the guests are sure to never forget. If your child asks you if a shark can survive without teeth or why poop is brown you can tell them to go grab their phones and look it up. It doesn’t matter if your friends and family are 100 miles away because you can keep them and the acquaintances you run into occasionally at Target up to date on every single milestone your children have. It’s the best when people your kids have never met before tell them they just saw that photo of them in underwear practicing karate kicks. We can now be self proclaimed authors, Dear Abbies, photographers and inventors. If we want to learn how to play the piano, mentor under Lionel Messi, or pencil our eyebrows on fleek we can just YouTube it. Our kids are more sophisticated (even with common core math) and we are all more connected and plugged into the matrix.

I am the first to admit that I have a small addiction to oversharing, overposting and scrolling to stay current. I have a Pinterest account that would put the whole OCD population to shame. But what happens on the days when those perfectly styled picturesque children hanging on your wall are calling you from school because they got into a fight or stole a book from the book fair because peer pressure won that day. What happens when the reality hits you like at bat to the face that you can’t afford botox or snake venom cream and that face isn’t going to lift itself. And though you have Pinterest boards full of amazing ideas on how to perfectly organize children’s outfits for Monday through Friday and hand stitch their costumes from scratch and refinish furniture to revamp your whole living room, you just sit in an overwhelming pile of tears because you feel like a failing wife and mother for not having one clean towel or pan in the entire house. You want to tell your dead-end job to go suck it because you’ve decided to start up an amazing business you pitched to Shark Tank and are now off to California with your beach body, clean living and positive affirmations… oh but wait, you have to pay bills and deal with having no dental insurance and need new tires and there is that eating thing. In an attempt to escape reality you hit one of those tiles on your phone sucking you into a vortex of social media… because that is sure to lift you out of your funk.

I think what I am trying to say is best is relative. Best is a balance. Maybe our best self is the one who, in our pile of tears, tells us that we are doing the best we can and maybe that lack of sleep from a teething baby isn’t helping us to emotionally manage the world at that very moment. Our best self is one who on the best of days strives to complete tasks, act responsibility, contribute to our family, think positively and inspire globally but on our worst of days yells at the kids, is impatient with the car driving slow in the fast lane, has bills in collections, a sink full of dirty dishes and still has that last 10 pounds of baby weight to lose. Maybe being the “best” is knowing that there is no such thing and that the hard days give us perspective so we know what a good day feels like. The best you is the one who is inspired by posts of people striving for healthier lifestyles and achieving their dreams but knowing that they still have their off days too. You’ve achieved the best when you find yourself in circles of other people who have come together through common experiences and want to share it and uplift one another. We click the Like button and comment big or small on eachother’s day to day lives. We form groups to talk about health and parenting and how to get from one day to the next. We live in an amazing time where we can tell people that they are not alone.

So who cares what a stranger has to say? Why would someone want to be so vulnerable and share their thoughts and feelings with all of mankind (depending on your privacy settings). Words that people may not agree with, possibly be offended by, or even judge? I have been seeing a lot of posts about depression in my feed over the last week and it made me slow down to think. No ma​tter how wonderful someone’s life may appear, you have no idea what they are battling from within. None of us are exempt from struggle and we are all overcoming and living with our own obstacles. What can be so cool about the world we live in today is that we are building communities. A blogger who you follow who you may never meet in your whole life may just take the words right out of your mouth. She/he may tell you it’s okay and I do the same thing too. Their vulnerable words make you feel connected to your world again when you were just hanging on by a thread. It walked you off of the ledge and into a room full of people just like you. The words may not have been grammatically crafted or bound by hardcover but they were real and honest. We are finding coura​ge to share our words with eachother b​ecause though to most it might seem like “who cares what I have to say” to someone else your words and experiences just saved their life. Words c​an be kind and they can be cruel, but when they are real and we use them with care they are The Best.