For my followers, I’m still here. For nearly the entire month of January I’ve been sick with what turned out not to be a cold but the flu. Given my history of asthma, pneumonia, upper respiratory infections and bronchitis, I’ve followed my doctor’s recommendation to get a flu shot for many years. Somehow this year I didn’t prioritize and as a result, I was taken down for weeks. Shame on me.
Pre-election, I made a conscious decision to not use my social media presence to make my personal political leanings known. As the election grew closer, I did occasionally “like” certain posts on Facebook that spoke to my beliefs. What I didn’t do was to seek out those Facebook “friends” whose positions were the opposite of mine and make snarky remarks. In short, I remembered what my mama taught me “if you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all”. Wise woman.
As months dragged on, several Facebook “friends” took a different approach. Posting non-stop with sometime truly offensive shares in their feeds, I first used the “hide” feature making those posts in effect disappear. In several cases, I stopped following them though not un-friending or blocking them. As my yoga instructor Jules had taught me, “if it disturbs your peace, let it go” and that worked for me.
I have a number of friends whose politics are not the same as mine but I still love and admire them for all their other positive attributes. There seems to be an unspoken understanding that we simply don’t talk about politics, that our friendship in more important than our need to debate.
Post-election the divisiveness continues. I’ve still been inspired to share a few posts that I mirrored my views. Sadly, I’ve had a Facebook “friend” who can’t stop themselves from making sarcastic comments on those posts. This has happened half a dozen times and while I don’t reply, it’s disturbed my peace. Another life lesson from my mom, “don’t take the bait” has stopped me from engaging with so much as a reply. To cope and stop this from happening in the future, I’ve blocked this individual earlier this week and immediately felt a sense of peace.
In recent weeks, I’ve adopted what my life-long BFF calls a “news fast” avoiding the onslaught of daily news that make me sad, stressed or upset. Again, my way of coping…
I’ve decided to get back to blogging about life, food, cats, travel and positive, humorous things which attracted me to it in the first place. The kind, unconditional acceptance and support and the new friends of every age, gender, occupation, nationality and sexual orientation have been a constant source of happiness for me as I continue being a citizen of the blogosphere.
Thank you for being a part of my life.
Good for you…stay with the positive and the rest will work itself out. Thank you for being a part of our lives too! So glad you are feeling better!
Sounds like our moms gave us similar – and sound – advice. I, too prefer to avoid the topics of politics and religion. However, for a couple weeks, I felt compelled to share information, which I had vetted, but the media was either distorting or ignoring. I am now back to pet information and humor, though I’m still avoiding facebook and all that drama.
So glad you’ve also found your circle of tranquility in the ongoing emotional overload. I often think that people need to verify what exactly was said before they react because in several instances, it look like they are reacting to things, which were neither said nor done. Their karma, not mine.
BTW, I did remember to get my flu shot, but was still sick for a week with that insidious virus.