A few years ago I made the decision to leave Facebook. This was a decision motivated mostly by the conclusion that unneeded drama is almost inevitable when sharing your life experiences on a social media site like that. It came after a point when there had been such conflict occurring in a couple major instances that I could no longer stand to let it be an avenue I would allow myself to go down, when conflict in "real life" seems hard enough to avoid the way it is.
Now, truth be told, less than a year ago I made my way back into the world of Facebook. Before that, I'd been only found on LinkedIn as far as social media goes. The reasons that brought me back were equal parts sentimental and practical. I've enjoyed networking with new people and getting back in touch with many people of whom, without something like Facebook, unfortunately, I would surely have lost track. Primarily, though, Facebook: Round 2 has been all about me finding a way to be a positive voice in my world.
During my hiatus from Facebook, I enjoyed knowing that if a person was going to have a problem with me, it was almost 100% inevitable that it was going to be from a face-to-face, real interaction, not a cyber-misunderstanding. There have still been a couple conflicts of that latter variety, because of an email or a text, but I've worked hard to eradicate those by either more careful use of email and text, or by trying to improve my people skills overall.
But although my quest in my second life in Facebook has been one of intended harmony and positive influence, there have still been a couple of ruffled feathers. Now, frankly, part of me wants us all to agree that it's quite silly to be surprised by that. If you're going to use Facebook in the fullest, or even most of its, capacity (i.e. posting statuses of your own life or thoughts, commenting on others' posts of the same, sharing pictures, sending "PMs," or Personal Messages, etc)....well, then, feathers shall be ruffled once or twice because we are, after all, human. To err is human, right? And how does the rest of that go? "....But to forgive is divine."
Then why in tarnation are we all so bad at being forgiving and gracious with each other on Facebook?
See, on the one hand, a large part of me loathes social media for its tendency to draw out the worst in human nature. We can be so fake on there, sometimes. We can be so nasty, and arrogant, and insensitive, and crude too. We somehow get it in our heads that things we'd never say to others face-to-face are just fine to say from the protection of an online social media account. We accept this part of the mini-culture of something like Facebook (and this all applies to Twitter and most of the others too, I'm just not on any of them, so this is the extent of my experience) as something that's socially acceptable, yet we'll post on Facebook itself at the same time about what nerve someone had to talk to us or act a certain way that we find ourselves treating each other all the time from behind our computer screens or cell phones. As a result of this, people are getting more socially disconnected in our modern world, even though seemingly more connected.
But on the other hand, social media is what it is. And it's here to stay...at least for awhile. I'd like to believe that a day might come when we'll go through another renaissance of sorts and come full circle back to the ways things used to be when our communities were entirely flesh and blood, and the conversations were on porches, in town halls, pubs, and ball parks alone; when government was practiced by everyone in some level or another and everybody in a township or city knew what it was to gather and share in a real way. But that day is a long ways off, and even if we rebuild that element back into our social fabric, social media may be inextricably established because of technology and mankind's ability to continually believe the lie that lesser alternatives are OK when life gets us too busy for the real thing. After all, that's why we're on Facebook with our friends all night long all the time from miles away, but never see one another that often, isn't it??
So what are we to do with this paradox? And what are those of us to do, who value becoming leaders in our own lives, with the need for social media as an outlet for positivity?
"Need???" you say? Well, alright, I admit that "need" is a strong word perhaps. But given that the times are what they are, and almost everyone from adolescence to the grave is online somewhere, if one is of the disposition to fight back in his own unique, little way against the cacophony of negative voices and information that bleeds its way into everything in life, don't we NEED to use every channel we can to push back with what's good?
That's my new philosophy nowadays, anyway. And so, that is [mostly] why I'm found on Facebook once again...for now.
But this concession to be found on social media creates a leadership quandary. A conundrum. A Catch 22. A balancing act, to be sure.
It means that I have to somehow seek to be a regular presence in this social media world, adding my own personal value to it in the regular ways that others will agree with and be attracted to (hopefully), yet somehow keep myself away from the fray of drama and petty online behavior. If I'm a real leader-in-progress, a man hoping to become a beacon of influence and a proper model of how to build relationships and create an upright and enjoyable culture around myself, I cannot slip into the muck of what so many others seem content to spread in social media: hatred, slander, gossip, complaining and pity parties, and devaluation of timeless principles. Simply put, I need to have a mission to keep above all the drama, and certainly never to cause it.
But alas, I still fail. Once in awhile, I forget who I'm really trying to be, and I take the risk of something like posting a comment to someone else's post that, in my mind, is harmless and makes a good point - a good, evangelical, I-stand-for-something kind of point. Maybe the timing was just wrong, maybe the word choice or lack of enough explanation was to blame. Maybe it was the perfect comment placed into the Facebook world of the wrong person. Maybe it was 6 and a half other possible reasons. But it led to someone being upset with me, telling me she was going to delete my comment (which a couple others had already liked, actually), and sharing her anger and disgust over how I was manifesting an attitude that belies a very large group of people with whom she apparently has come to take issue over the recent past.
Now, wanting to be a leader, I chose to say no to the temptation inside to fight back and show umbrage, to defend my point, and tell her off for so unfairly lumping me into a group of people with whom I actually tend to take issue myself, in fact. After all, who was she to classify me like that, and act as if she knew exactly who I am today, when in reality we never interact that much on Facebook (interact far less in person, because we lives states apart) and she only truly knew me well back in high school and shortly after?
I kept all those offended and indignant thoughts to myself, pulled the weed of negativity, and realized that, even if there was only the tiniest shred of validity to her reason to be upset at me, I ought to make it right. "A leader always accepts the blame, so he or she can have the most participation in bringing about the solution," is what I've heard so many times in the past few years. So I apologized, acknowledged how she might feel that way from her perspective, and offered the possibility that I could've chosen different words.
In the end, I don't know how much damage that was done - or was perceived to have been done - was actually fixed. But the point I'm making here is this:
If I've chosen to walk this precarious path in social media, where someone can get greatly upset with me over something I think would truly be handled better in person, then I need to be ready to absorb the blows that come with the territory. I can choose to handle them as lovingly and selflessly as I've been learning to handle real, face-to-face conflicts, rather than bemoan their presence in my life. They are, after all, conflicts I've allowed to become a possibility.
It's either that, or I leave that part of my world behind again, and lose out on the opportunities to share my voice in all the encouraging, positive, leadership-oriented, and God-glorifying ways that I hope to have by staying in the fray.
In the end, a life lived in the pursuit of excellence is not an aloof one. True leaders want to be an in-the-mix part of the world of which they're an inhabitant, and they embrace the challenges, and precarious, yet necessary, balancing acts that come their way in life. In order to fulfill a purpose of being a light in a dark world, and being a leader among people who will always need one, this is the game that must be played.
And it's a game that must be played with grace for all - even those who have shown me none. I'm so far from perfect it's a laughable joke, but I just want to make a difference.
So bring on the tightrope.
