Facebook or Fakebook?

I could only wish I lived the life portrayed in my Facebook pictures. I don’t! Every single day for close to four years now I try and post a single picture on Facebook. Excessive? Maybe. Fun? Absolutely! As my FB profile states it’s my goal to photo journal my life with a daily snapshot of a beautiful image, an important or noteworthy event or a picture of something I find cute, funny or even inspirational. I love the challenge of capturing an image, everyday, that represents how I see the world or more specifically how I want to see and remember the world! What I don’t post is the images of my mundane life or in particular the crap, like everybody else, I have to deal with. After all a photograph of my wife’s “angry face” over something stupid I did or said isn’t nearly the kind of image I’d like to remember from that day. However hiking a state park with my family and dog in tow as the sun rises or sets most certainly is! In that regard I kinda feel my posts are par for the course from what I see others doing on FB. But believing that what others post is the whole and complete “picture” is far from reality. What inspired me to write this blog, was this private message I received from “someone I’ve never met” after reading my blog, “My Problems are Bigger than Yours.”

“Greg back in May I wrote you a pretty heartfelt post and got no response at all, not even a Carpe Diem. I know that you don’t know me but I am a client who had one of your Certified Aquascape Contractors build me a pond. I have held a bit of a grudge since you didn’t respond and started to delete you several times. The blog you posted today changed my viewpoint. I see your posts and you come off as a guy who can do whatever he wants whenever he wants. No problems and no worries. After reading your blog I saw a vulnerable side I haven’t seen before. A guy with issues like me and everyone else. Thanks for posting it. I wish you the best now and in the future with your adventure in the Dominican Republic. God Bless.”

Mortified! That’s how I felt after reading this person, again someone I’ve never met, note to me. Simply put I read his private message to me wishing me luck and blessings on our family’s decision to relocate to the Dominican, I appreciated it, and than the stewardess told me to turn off my phone. In other words I thought I had replied in kind but apparently the crap of life happened and I didn’t reply. In the process I offended someone I never intended to. It’s happened to all of us. Thankfully I got a second shot to make it right and this time I actually replied and even closed with a “Carpe Diem.”

Here’s the point of my weekly rant. Facebook is fake. It’s always an incomplete picture of the whole story. If you were my kids you would see how many pictures I shoot and reshoot trying to capture the action, the sun and the moment in just the right light. We all try and do the same things everyday in our relationships, our businesses and our life. As for me I take far more pictures than I post and fail many more times than would be apparent from the pictures I do.

So remember the next time you see a post from me or anyone else, it’s the image they are choosing to share with you and only part of whatever bigger story there is. I’m cool with that. After all I enjoy seeing my friends’ kids smiling (after or before the tears) my customers or even customers of customers ponds looking beautiful (after the weeds are pulled) or pictures of someone’s beach vacation (not the lost luggage or flight delays). The crap of life is fine to share too, every now and again. But be truthful, when people share their personal crap daily are those really the kind of “friends” you want to be “friends” with?! My life is far from perfect, as it will be when you’re pushing the envelope, owning a small business and choosing to love flawed people. We are all flawed even if our Facebook pictures don’t always reveal it. But now you know so post away and don’t ever stop loving people or trying to make an artful life in the process in your own unique way. Carpe Diem…indeed!