Melody Pearson
Promote Your Page Too
On Facebook, many people are participating in a 30 days of saying Thanks. Each morning you post an update to your status with a different thing that you are grateful for. Some are extremely personal, others have a generalized lifetime gratitude kind of attitude. Some are uplifting, others amusing, but the overall theme is lets think positively about our lives and appreciate the things we have instead of complaining about what’s missing.
Although celebrating a day of Thanksgiving on the third Thursday of November is an American tradition, this exercise can be international. Everyone, wherever they are in the world, can look at their lives and think, “What can I find to say Thank you about today?” Then share it with the world.
This has made me realize that Facebook and other Social Media sites may wind up being the seeds that finally bring the world together. This electronic sharing of our lives with people we may never meet face-to-face is an awesome way of making connections. I have “friends” from all over the globe. Some, the ones I interact with most often, are family and actual physical friends, but many more are in other places. Some of them post in languages I cannot understand, but they also post pictures that tell of their families and interests that can be understood by all. It becomes obvious that we share more similarities than differences.
I also had a birthday this week and the very first person to write birthday wishes on my wall was a friend from Indonesia whose name I wouldn’t even attempt to pronounce, but the 1am post he made was simple and real “Happy Birthday…Wish You All The Best…” He’s not someone I chat with or link to, we got acquainted because we both played the same games back when I had time for that. But he took the time to send me a greeting. Sometimes getting along with people from other cultures is that simple. Everyone has birthdays, families, jobs, hopes and dreams. If we can find meeting places there, maybe we can close the gaps between us.
We all complain that Facebook is the big time-sucking wasteland of people posting every little detail of their private lives to a world that doesn’t care. Maybe instead, it can be the great leveler that will enable us to better understand each other. Today, aside from the 30 days online project, I am thankful for Facebook. It makes it possible for me to meet new people, learn about things I’d never discover on my own, and stay in touch with family that I seldom get to see in person.
