By Sarah Huffer
Fitting in is the most miserable decision of my life.
I’m clumsy and mostly awkward. Weirdly happy and bright. Somewhere in life, I decided I needed to blend. Like ya’ll blend eyeshadow. I smudged my personality until I became one watered down fragment of a soul without any defining characteristics.
I agreed with the crowd. I contoured my face(I still suck at this). I worshipped fall. I pinned Pinterest projects. Should I buy a salt rock lamp or eat kale? I was powerless to Target.
Even more, I highlighted the best parts of my life to portray my life. In reality, I couldn’t keep up with the dishes. I burn bread. My kids were feeding their healthy desserts to the dogs. My youngest daughter is, literally, pissed off all the time. She only smiles when you are hurting yourself.
This world of Starbucks, Kardashians (except you Khloe, you my girl ), and smartphones blows balls! I hate your paper mache hanging spheres and your Hobby Lobby chevron color theme! What happened to janky homemade Birthday cakes?! Can we bring that back, please?
Let’s make imperfect normal. Write a shitty draft, paint a terrible picture, eat pizza rolls for dinner. How else will we have time to live? If I’m keeping up this charade, how will I teach my kids depth and values? Compassion for people? Tribe achievements? I can’t let my kids think this is life.
We participate in a world where social media occupies a portion of our day. Keeping up with appearances and unnecessary updates of our lives has priority over more meaningful contributions. Your attention is valuable. Quit being a sucker.
Ok. I like seeing my family’s baby pictures and pictures of your vacations. Cat videos are hilarious. Somehow, social media has provided a small insight into what is going on in the world. However, I will remind you that between every funny meme and post about your mason jar salad is an overload of disturbing information that you are allowing to litter your mind. These things affect you on a serious level! Every ridiculous rant, sick news article, shared report about sexually abused children you scan is poisoning your healthy psyche and littering your soul. We are the problem.
I am not on a cloud. I know unspeakable things lurk in the shadows. My proposal is to contribute more positivity than complacency. Instead of sharing the terrible conviction, share an article on how the community is solving the problem. Let’s shine a light on what is beautiful and cast the horrendous into nonexistence. Who knows…all your happy vibes may inspire someone on the edge of doing unspeakable things into being a better human being.
You all have choice here. You have all the power! Let’s spend a portion of our social media time connecting with a human, contributing to our country, or adding light and love into the stratosphere? Please fill my newsfeed with posts about you achieving, making a difference, or an impactful way love has bestowed a change in your or somebody else’s life…and laughing baby videos,,,because…well…I believe they can change lives.
You are an unstoppable force, start acting that way!
Sarah Huffer is a Public Speaker and Author from Cincinnati. Her content includes inspiration, humor, family, and relationships. She specializes in transforming perception and energy for 14+ years. Sarah is a certified life coach, neuro-linguistic practitioner, past life regressionist, angel and energy intuitive, hypnotist, and Reiki Master since 2008. She is also an avid member of Toastmasters and the CASA Parachute Program as an advocate for abused and neglected children.