No matter how innocuous, people are quite ready to nail you to the wall, when you use social media. This happened this morning:
Let me 'fess up. My initial reaction was not nice. But I refrained from tweeting it. I just thought it. HARD. And then I started thinking...really thinking.
It is SO easy to judge people. So often, we seem to forget that there are REAL people behind those twitter and Facebook accounts. And yes, emails. We all have the capacity to make a snap-judgments on people, based on what we perceive, rather than what we actually know.
Now, a profile might tell us a wee bit about someone. But our realities are generally much more nuanced. And, at least in my case, much more messy.
Social media makes it really easy to snark, troll, rib and otherwise, harass, all manner of people.
So this was today's dose of snark, from someone who has absolutely no idea who or what I am.
If he did, he would know that I have champagne taste on a beer budget. My San Diego "mansion," comes in about 1,000 square feet. And I don't even live in it. My mom and brother do.
I do drive a Stingray. It's a flashy bit of kit, true, but I saved for two years and worked really hard to get it. I feel not at all guilty that I earned that car. It's about the only truly expensive thing I have ever bought for myself. With my money. That I earned.
I come from pretty humble beginnings, and am very proud that I am a completely self-made woman.
Let's just say, I have spent enough time in a trailer park to know that I greatly prefer a house or apartment. I also know that if that was my only option, you are darned tootin' I would live in one again. And maybe pop a car up on blocks and throw a green couch on my porch, for good measure. I am not kidding. You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you won't get the trailer park out of the girl.
Am I successful? Yes. I am good at what I do? Yes. I am one of the best.
Do I take it for granted? Not at all. I know all too well, how easy it is to fall. I have fallen more than once. I suspect there are more falls in my future, even if they are more the, "I've fallen, and I can't get up," variety.
So my response, in a roundabout way, to the above tweet, is this:
I really like that chair dude.