Ever checked your twitter feed and had the thought, “Man, if I only could be as good of a Christian as my twitter feed tells me to be.”
That’s twitterology…
Ever been on instagram and thought, “Man, I wish I had the great life like they do.”
That’s twitterology…
Ever checked out someone’s blog and thought, “Man, I’ll never get as many followers as they have.”
That’s twitterology…
We live in a day and age where social media reigns supreme. The fact is, the greater your reach and influence is on social media the larger platform you have for your voice to be heard. When I say twitterology it’s an all encompassing term, meaning all forms of social media, from your twitter account to your blog and every platform in between.
Twitterology is a life lived confined to 140 characters, a coveted instagram feed, and a popular blog. It’s a life lived in the social media world. It’s a life that looks beautiful from the screen of a MacBook, iPhone, or iPad.
But what if there’s life outside of social media, beyond 140 characters, and way from the false reality of instagram.
A live lived with no filters, hash tags, or likes.
I know it sounds scary and kind of harsh but what if you really started living life in person once again.
Think about it…
Instead of trying to get that perfect instagram post of our kids and having them do the really cute thing they just did over again, you just lived in the moment.
Instead of sitting on the couch tweeting all the great quotes from Nacho Libre as you watch it, you actually just sat there and laughed with your family.
What if you closed all your social media feeds for a while and became an active participant in the conversations going on around you?
What if we really started living life in the beautiful mess that it is instead of trying to create the façade of the amazing social media life we want everyone to believe we live?
This is my goal for the year…
I spent the last eighteen months of my life living in the “Christian” social media capital of the world, Nashville, Tennessee. I happened to work at a church where a lot of these people attended and were on staff.
In one year I went from having ninety-two followers on twitter to close to eleven hundred. I went from having no likes on my instagram post to more than some of my silly pictures ever should of.
The problem was that I had the false idea that I had to keep this life up, the more likes and followers I had the more influence I believed I had.
But in the pursuit of influence in the social media world I lost my influence in the world that mattered the most, my family.
I leveraged my family for social media…
I remember times my boys telling me, “Get of your phone daddy I want to play with you.” These words still haunt me.
I left Nashville over two months ago and have stepped away from the pursuit of influence in the social media world and have started pursuing forgiveness from my family.
I’m living in the beautiful mess that life is and I love it. I’m learning to live life beyond 140 characters and I encourage you to do the same thing.
I’m learning to redefine twitterology day by day…