Measuring Life By the "Likes"

I can't believe it's been more than two years since I've posted anything on this blog. Actually, I can. A lot has happened. It's hard to know where to begin. I think I'll start with my feelings on blogs and social media in general. It's complicated. Over the past few years, as life has become increasingly difficult, I've begun to question why I use social media - or why anyone does for that matter. There has been an interesting backlash against social media recently. Those behind the criticism suggest that people only post the positive happenings in their life, which results in their audience feeling jealous and inferior. As a society, we have become alarmingly voyeuristic - all of a sudden we want to see photos and be updated on people's lives, people who we admittedly have no connection to or little in common with anymore. We spend unlimited hours perusing people's Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and Instagram albums, comparing our lives to theirs and consequently wasting moments of our own lives - moments that could otherwise be spent with family members, actually physically visiting friends, working on projects we continue to set aside to stay on Facebook for "just a few more minutes." We're spending time NOT spending time on ourselves if that makes any sense. 

And if the majority of what people (including myself) post on their own pages consists of only the awesome, feel-good things that happen to us, we owe it to ourselves to ask this question: What about the negative? Why is it that most of us only want to put our best foot forward? Then there is the other group of people who constantly post how messed up and awful their life is, the people who seem to be fishing for concern at every corner. Also rather annoying. This then becomes a conversation about trying to balance the good shares and the bad shares. As the shit really started to hit the fan in my life, I never once felt compelled to post anything about it. Sure, I didn't really care to come across as a pity-seeker, but aside from that, I truly never once thought about sharing any of the difficulties we've been faced with. It was then that I realized I've been using social media, including this blog, for the wrong reasons. I’ve realized it really doesn't matter how many "likes" you have on a picture or status update. So much un-“like”able stuff has happened in the past two years that if I continued to measure my life by the “likes,” I would be pretty darn depressed. And I was just about getting there until I deactivated my Facebook account. Now I’m choosing to write to share my experiences, the good and the bad, purely for myself, as a form of therapy. And if others choose to learn anything or gain perspective from those experiences, even better.

In the past several months, we have lost two of our parents (one to cancer and one to Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and we have been confronted with some pretty heavy infertility issues. Not only have we had the misfortune of having to witness the loss of life – two lives, really, that we cherished so dearly – but we are also dealing with the fact that creating life is going to be an immense challenge for us. The irony and unfairness of it all is not lost upon us. The perspective we’ve gained in the past two years has taught us just how little is in our control. Our own lives are the only ones we have any sort of handle on. So Nishant and I have decided to embrace whatever fate hands us and make the most of our lives with each other…the good, the bad and the ugly. No more measuring life by the “likes.” As we have learned, it's far too precious.