Tuesday 4 December 2012

I used to try to fit in, now I just dip in! It's much more me


I was listening to the radio today and the guest speaker said something that really resonated with me. She said that as Christian we will be judged on how much we have loved and not on how much we know. It occurred to me that whether you are a Christian or not most people would do well to remember this. It surely has to be more important to be loving, kind and generous than to be the most knowledgeable, have the most or be the popular one?

Without ever having thought of this as a stand-alone concept I have always had to ask JJ the question – ‘Is it more important to be right or kind?’ He knows what the best answer is but he is still at an age when the lure of being right is very appealing. Some people never seem to grow out of that desire to be right and I do wonder why - Is it so satisfying to know that you are correct; does it help to make you feel superior? I do wonder how empty their life must be and how little inner joy they have, that those outward insignificant things have to take on such worth.

These thoughts about the importance of being loving have not left me today and I have realised that I must keep this caring approach at the forefront of my mind. I do strive to be a nice person, I want to be available to help others when they need me and I hope to come across as approachable but this has not always been the case. Well, not unless you ask my Mum, she would probably tell you I have always been an angel! However, I know I’ve been on a journey and turn the clock back 15 years and people might not have used such positive words to describe me, but I refuse to beat myself up about the past, God has forgiven me and wiped clean my slate and it is therefore imperative I do the same.

I was surprised earlier to find myself thinking of this radio comment in relation to blogging. I realised that many people in the blogging world would do well to remember that it is more important to be loving than to be knowledgeable, right, popular or whatever else it is they desire. I feel as if my eyes have been open to the fact that blogging is just like any other part of life for quite some time. I found out early on that there are some truly supportive people, some champions who will go out of their way for you and then there are those wearing their masks and pretending to be sweetness, luring you in to their evil games and they think nothing of trampling over you as they win points against their opponents or climb up the popularity charts. There are of course lots of other people sitting in the middle, some dipping into blogging, others diving in and becoming so absorbed they lose sight of real life and what it is all about.

Blogging is wonderful and rewarding but highly addictive and it can bring out the worst traits in people. You only have to watch my Twitter timeline at the time of the month when the Tots100 updates to see that some people go through every possible emotion as they ponder why ‘so and so’ is more popular than them, why they have not moved up in the chart despite their best month ever and what else they have to do to rank higher when they have already slogged their guts out that month.

I’m not perfect, don’t worry about that. There have been times when I have yearned to be more popular in blogging terms, to have such a wonderful technical knowledge like XYZ or to be able to create a visual fest like ABC. But I’m me, perfectly as God created me. I can only be me. I am so glad that I got my head around the fact that I do not have to fit in with blogging. In fact there is no such thing as fitting in with blogging or parenting blogging or any other blogging circle you frequent. We are talking about 4000-5000 parenting blogs alone that is a massive number. Would you ever fit in with that amount of people in a real life situation? Hardly! You just have to find the bunch of people that you relate to or fell most comfortable with and spend time with them, or don’t spend time with them, the choice is always yours. A while back I sent a tweet in response to a comment on a recent post I wrote about blogging, it said ‘I used to try to fit in but now I just dip in, it’s much more me’ and I think that sums things up nicely. Be you. You are perfect as you are. Be immersed in blogging or don’t, the choice is yours - just enjoy and be content!

Ohh and ignore the negative bloggers that try to sap your energy, they are not worth it, they obviously have issues and you know what they say, what goes around comes around.

So now over to you, have you found your happy medium yet? And any advice you want to share with other bloggers to help them maintain perspective? Just leave a comment….
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