Why Me?

All too often we see those influencers on social media that appear to live the perfect life. They always seem happy. They create this false sense of hope for the rest of the world that this level of happiness is actually obtainable. Not to say that true happiness is farfetched by any means, and this blog post isn’t one big rant tearing down happy folks by any means. It’s the exact opposite actually. More of a reality check. I want to walk you through my reality, as I’m one of those people that I believe puts on a rather happy front to my followers. Not as a façade or by any malicious intent, but because nobody likes to follow a negative Nancy right? People are drawn to positivity! So the purpose of this post is to show you all that although you’re following seemingly positive people, remember; they are still human and you should hold them to the same human standards you hold yourself to rather than trying to elevate yourself to an impossible standard that is the pedestal you have put them on. My Failures: It is so important to understand that everyone, even your biggest idols, have failures in their past, present, and future. I too have failures that have molded me into the person I am today. Many of you know I am in the military. When you go to achieve the ranks of NCO in the Air Force, you must test against your peers Air Force wide. The test scores are factored in with your performance in many different areas to include fitness, leadership, followership, dress and appearance, etc. Most Senior Airmen take the test 1-2 times and they receive what is called a line number for Staff Seargant which tells them when they will become an E5. I took this test so many times my line number was in the double digits. I’ll let you think about how many E4’s I tested against in the Air Force that year. I sewed on E5 almost immediately. It was an embarrassment to me when I watched all my peers pass me up! That doesn’t even touch my biggest failure in life, however. Many of you may not know this one! I have been married and divorced twice! Yup! You heard that right! Not proud of it at all. The first time was a day before my 19th birthday and he was a Marine with chronic PTSD. He was an abusive alcoholic. That marriage resulted in a really hasty dissolution where we both amicably split and went our separate ways. We never spoke to one another again. I couldn’t tell you if he is even still alive to this day. Marriage #2 is the father of my oldest child. I thought it was true love. That’s a story for another time. There was some infidelity and I ended up a single mom to an extremely young child. Him and I were together for 6 years. What a mess that made in my life! You don’t see any of that in my bubbly smiling posts on social media. Who wants to hear a sad sob story of another woman that jumped from one man to the next and got her heart broke? Come on now! That isn’t going to inspire anyone! Let’s be real with ourselves. It’s also embarrassing to me. I’m not ashamed to say it today. I’m with a loving man who accepts me for all my flaws, but how does me venting about my exes make a difference to any of my followers? My Tragedies: So here is the stuff folks eat up! Tragedies! Everyone loves to hear about someone else’s tragedies. Mine include being blown up, being run over by a car while pregnant, having epilepsy and losing my license, being diagnosed with Chron’s, my daughter being diagnosed with Bipolar, losing loved ones, etc. The list goes on. Why is it that people want to hear a tragic story over a failure? Because it is perceived that we self-inflict failures, whereas tragedies are something out of our control that just happen to us. They make us “human”. Other people can relate to us through tragedies. I’m in epilepsy groups and Chron’s groups on social media and I see stronger bonds between people in these groups than the groups of people who are just of a common interest. Misery truly does love company and this is shown to us time and time again with natural disasters, mass shootings, and other mass casualty tragedies. Stop the Madness It shouldn’t require tragedies and failures for us to relate to one another. We also shouldn’t be comparing our lives to the seemingly perfect lives of those we look up to. I promise you, everyone on this planet suffers both failures and tragedies. Hold your head high and be proud of what you have accomplished. Live your life, not the lives of those you look up to. Use them for nothing more than inspiration. It’s so easy to blur the lines so do your best to keep a clear vision of what is inspiration and what is consuming your mind. It was put on my heart to write this post today because someone needed to read it. I don’t know who you are, but I hope it reaches you. You are a beautiful person inside and out and I hope you know that. Your value is of the utmost and if the people surrounding you are not echoing that back then you need to distance them from you for a time. Surround yourself with those that will demonstrate your value to you! This world needs you. Be humble and be yourself. You are perfect just the way you are…flaws and all!