Sometime last week, one of my facebook friends linked to an article on Huffington Post discussing how to be insufferable on facebook. The premise of the article was the author taking issue with a long post from one of his/her friends, essentially recapping all the great things that have happened to them over the past year. The author then slowly became more enraged with the post as the post was basically a boast of "Look how awesome my life is!". The rest of the article discussed posts like that and other such posts which would serve to essentially alienate facebook friends.
I was amazed at how many of my friends liked the article and the discussion that followed. I know I'm guilty of some of the "inconsiderations" that were listed in the article, but I don't care. None of my posts are designed to make all of my facebook friends feel better about themselves. They're there to keep the people that care about me up to date about my life. I don't intend to create any rift with my posts and if I post about something awesome occurring in my life, its not meant as a brag; rather, as my friends, I want you to celebrate with me. This was my main issue with the Huffington Post article. If you find yourself getting angry at someone's comments on facebook, the onus is on you to do something about it, not them. Its really not that difficult. In fact, just stop reading the post and move on. Al Gore did not invent the internet so everyone could focus on making you feel good about yourself. If the problem persists, either block the person or unfriend them because there are issues if you get angry whenever your friends are happy about something.
Two days later I was a victim of my own words. I have an acquaintance on facebook who I feel had wronged me earlier and it affected me more than it probably should have. I saw her discussing things of a similar nature to what was mentioned above and I found myself getting angry. I haven't blocked/unfriended her yet, but it'll get there soon. It scared me that I had this thought of, "If you ever cross me, I will become cross with you when you enjoy having nice things." Thankfully, I know how to remedy the situation since I can't insist that others are responsible for my happiness.
Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. In the way in which I was wronged, I turned around and did that to someone else just recently, but in a worse way. When you make someone cry and you know you're in the wrong and there's nothing you can really do but apologize, it really makes you feel like an asshole. I should've known better than doing what I had to do the way I did because I don't like making people hurt. Anyone reading this knows my callousness and indifference is feigned. There's no happy ending here yet. I can only hope things work out eventually.
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