Interchanging the word “Facebook” with the word “War” in the personally preferred Edwin Starr version of the hit Motown classic for my title has been a fun exercise for the day!  I have to thank the Weekly Writing Challenge for instigating this little musical  intrigue in my easily distracted mind.  Now down to business.

I once sat in a teaching by a Tibetan Buddhist nun that compared Facebook to the ultimate ego indulgence.  A place where egos run rampant with their over identification with self.  Where attachment to an “identity” grows stronger with every random post about what so and so ate for dinner or how annoying that guy was for cutting so and so off in traffic.   If I had to pinpoint the one thing that I learned from teaching people how to empower themselves it is that we have a choice in how we treat ourselves, others, and even in our use of a social media tool whether its Facebook, Twitter, or the next big thing.

I didn’t even use Facebook until around 2008, and I am even “of” that generation.  I resisted it until I could find a way to make it work in a meaningful way for me.  When I was training to be a life coach it was important to do your own personal work so you could help others authentically.  A big exercise we did was inventory our “incompletes” and make them “complete.”

This is where you interject, “What the heck is she talking about?”

Thank you for asking!

Incompletes- those little energy suckers (or BIG) that sit in the periphery of your mind, loaded up like a Twinkie with emotions such as guilt, shame.  The emotions never expire much like a Twinkie and its filling- and they clog up your life, unknowingly, like a backed up airplane runway.  You want to take off but “hello!” Traffic strikes again.

That’s when I met Facebook.  There were so many people in my life that I wanted to apologize to, make amends, let them know, “I am grateful for how you showed up in my life,” but couldn’t because how could I find them?  I got on Facebook and like an illuminated sky on a crisp spring morning I cleared my runway of all those stuck airplanes that were weighing me down.  So the question remains- is Facebook the “scourge” of the internet?

There have been lots of posts about how everything is a choice, even Facebook (including mine).  So guess what?  For me it all comes down to perception!  I literally made Facebook “purposeful” and chose to engage with it in a positive, meaningful way where I could heal some old self-inflicted wounds and enrich my life.  And boy did it help me breathe.  To that note, I’d like to sing a rousing “Happy Birthday” and give my gratitude for the lightness I feel in my heart today due to this rocking scourge of the internet.  Perception is a shaky topic because people stand by them like they are a part of their body.  But when I can acknowledge and own the power it plays from the ignorant mind to the purposeful mind, I can determine its role in my life rather than allow “it” to determine me.

In the perfect words of Clark Griswold, “Alleluia!  Where’s the Tylenol?!”  Thanks Mr. Griswold for that perfect ending.

Let’s Rock Big Love!