7 tips for being happy & healthy online this fall

2020 has been a grind. with very few exceptions, this year has dramatically altered our plans and futures, leaving us with more questions than answers. the world of social media often doesn’t help, promoting the loudest and most divisive voices. i want to be online without letting it eat me alive.

if you are reading this, i bet you do too.. rather than try and get you to spend less time scanning instagram and youtube, i am aiming to help you enjoy it more. limiting your social media intake might be healthy for you, but however much you consume, it needs to be helping you be more of you actually want to be.

as we continue to process racial unrest, approach a historic election, try to make it through online schools and the continuing ravages of the virus on our health and economy … 

here’s 7 tips i have learned that when practiced produce healthy and holy enjoyment of the online world:

everything you read online is someone selling you something. they might be selling you anger or sensuality or fear or just a persona. the persona can be ‘cute homeschool mom’ or ‘successful salesman’ or ‘not-trying-to-be-perfect-keeping-it-real dad’ but it’s mostly a mirage. it’s all part truth and part fallacy, organized to get you to buy or rage or be impressed. rather than be annoyed by the facades people are selling you, accept that people are projecting their ideal self into the world. and you are too.

people are telling you a lot by what they are selling. you will be happier online if you accept that your friend’s kids aren’t as perfect as her filters make them seem, but it’s a good thing she cares enough to want them to be. pastors never post an empty seat, ballers never the dunk they missed, and influencers not usually the angle that gave them a double chin. just accept it.

skip cynically dissecting every little thing, just see it clearly. rather than comparing your reality to someone else’s highlights, look at your cultivated highlights and imagine they feel the same desire to compete and look good as you do.

i want to be an insightful bible teacher, dedicated pastor, committed family man, a societal contrarian, an advocate for justice through king jesus and a graciously loving person. and so i post things that hopefully make people think i’m those things. that sounds bad, but it can be helpful. i often think of something snarky or harsh that i want to say, but think to myself, ‘i don’t want to be a guy who says stuff like that.’ your chosen identity can motivate your behavior towards that identity. this is healthy.

but what if you want to have a happy marriage, take stunning vacations, have brilliant kids, be printing money at work but you aren’t? don’t fall into the trap of nurturing a false perception because it makes you feel better temporarily. if you need to apologize to your husband, go do it. don’t post a picture of him saying stuff in public you probably wouldn’t in private.  the more a couple gushes in public, often the more fragile it is behind the scenes. the more who you are online and offline diverges the more dissonance you will feel. dissonance makes us unhappy.

now, we also don’t need more over-sharers, overflowing with toddler bathroom fiascos and TMI relationship stories. not everything that happens in life is supposed to be monetized or turned into clickbait.  be who you are trying to be. and do it without desperation. and you will find yourself less stressed about the gap between image and reality. use who you want to seem to be to motivate you to actually become that.

this seems so obvious and simple, yet few people follow it. social media has formulated some wonderful tools for not needing to read about your nephew’s football career or anti-vax screeds from your college friend, the mute button. and for anyone well-known, you can always just unfollow. if reading what a news source or public figure or old friend has to say makes you angry or discontent regularly, just stop looking.

you don’t owe anyone your attention (other than jesus and your family). you will be happier if you only give it to things and people that help you.

now, there is a distinction to be made between people who upset you and people who challenge you. thoughtful reasonable counterpoints to your political/theological/parenting/fashion/nutrition ways of thinking are key to being a healthy person. if you only ever read the views of people you agree with, you tend to become more strident and unloving. so make it a point to see things that challenge you, just not from bloviating dopes.

 last year, i preached on jacob/esau reuniting after 20 years of broken relationship. in genesis 33, jacob tries to give esau a large present to assuage the guilt he feels over stealing his birthright. esau turns it down, but not from anger, rather because he doesn’t need it anymore. they both say to each other ‘i have enough.’ after enough time had passed, they cared more about being brothers than about getting ahead. cultivated contentment produces joy. use your social feeds to cultivate contentment not bitterness or envy.

if following him makes you jealous of the girl he’s now dating, unfollow.

if seeing his business or her perfect joanna gaines style house upsets you, take a break.

i often justify looking at things that upset me by saying, ‘that shouldn’t bother me.’ ok … but it does. so save the idealistic stuff and be practical.

there’s a million people who would die to have what you have and a million people with a lot more. contentment has very little to do with what you have, and a lot to do with how you think about it. if you see 20 pictures a day of people wearing jimmy choos as they step in to their new lamborghini, you will start to have skewed view of your own blessings.

some people love news and its cycles of pageantry.

some people have a general way of thinking and no interest in the day to day.

some people feel so passionately about what’s right (but especially what’s wrong) that they love to discuss it all day every day.

there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these (although i would say from personal observation of others that hours a day of fox news or msnbc is as damaging to a soul than hardcore pornography), but find what works for you and stick to it. 2020 is an election year, and the fight is intense and ugly. if following the daily twists and turns (or reading the comments of people who do), bums you out, then decide who to vote for in august and tune the rest out.

we are responsible to vote and do so from christian conscience. we aren’t responsible to inundate ourselves with content that makes us worry and stress. if you don’t want to engage in the day to day of the election, don’t. and if you do, by all means, but don’t require it of everyone.

state your views as compellingly as you can and if people want to argue, don’t. there’s absolutely nothing that says you have to respond to the person who without comment posts a two hour ben shapiro video in response to your request for people to wear masks. when that girl who is anti everything in medicine starts in on you about george soros and the cabal, just don’t engage.

the world of conspiracy theory is deep and dark, but it’s unlikely that someone you kinda know who has fallen into it will be moved by your comments. it’s emotionally taxing to go back and forth, especially with a person who is combative and angry. we do much much better to simply state our points, and move on.

in a world where information and opinion is ubiquitous, our tone becomes more useful than our ideas. when we converse graciously with people we disagree with us, we are contributing more to society and the kingdom than our most pithy slam on the libs or whatever.

recently a large disagreement formed on my facebook page around a racially charged topic. 3 people i hadn’t talked to in years messaged me, thanking me for allowing people to disagree without flipping out. i have messed that up other times of course, but the more we graciously live online, the happier we are AND the more impact we make.