Wednesday Wisdom; Social Media en gedrag

Don't promote negativity online and expect people to treat you with positivity in person. 

                                                           ― Germany Kent

Het valt niet te ontkennen dat sinds de komst van de diverse sociale media ook veel mensen maar denken dat ze alles maar mogen zeggen. Er zit immers geen 'echt' persoon achter dat beeldscherm dus waarom ook niet? Je kunt alles kwijt, alle vuiligheid van fatshaming, tot het uitschelden van de president van Amerika aan toe. Nu kun je over die laatste denken wat je witl (hij doet het zelf vaak zat) maar dan nóg is dat geen reden om het zelf ook maar te doen. Je bent tenslotte zelf altijd nog een mens met gevoelens en stel dat het jezelf zou overkomen. Wat dan? Zou je dan zo kalm blijven doortikken en je gal spuwen? 

Vooral het fatshamen vind ik wel zoiets vreselijks; gisteren zag ik een filmpje op Facebook bijvoorbeeld van een prachtig mooie meid die wellicht wat aan de stevige kant was, maar hee, wie is dat niet? Ikzelf mag daar al helemaal al niks over denken, laat staan zeggen! Ieder het zijne, plus waarom zou je iemand af gaan lopen kraken over het feit hoe ze eruit zien? Als ik ergens een hekel aan heb... maar goed, die jonge vrouw dus had het over dieëten en dat iedereen met Kerst aangemoedigd wordt toch lekker te eten en in januari dan toch vooral een dieet te gaan volgen en zodat die kerst-kilo's er weer af 'vliegen'. Dat dit helemaal geen goed iets is en dat het vooral gaat om hoe je mentaal in elkaar zit. Dat je beter lekker in je al dan niet ruime vel kunt zitten dan maar koste wat kost die dieëten te moeten volgen omdat 'het moet'. Ze heeft uiteraard groot gelijk! Sowieso zijn dieëten helemaal niet goed voor je, zeker niet als je zoals 'wij', te zwaar bent en dan ieder dieet 'moet' gaan volgen volgens diegenen die zich eraan storen.
Waar het om gaat is; de commentaren onder haar filmpje. Ze werd voor alles en nog wat uitgemaakt! Het was verschrikkelijk! Zo'n positief mens en dan volledig de grond in gebrand worden! Schandalig dat jij aan de andere kant van je beeldscherm vindt dat jij het recht hebt om iemand die je niet kent zo af te maken!

Zo ook bij items van nieuwsberichten; de vuiligheid die daarop komt te staan in de commentaren is gewoon vreselijk. Je wilt graag het nieuws volgen maar krijgt toch van alles mee van het commentaar. De wereld verhufterd.
Ik hoop eerlijk gezegd dat het heel snel gaat veranderen. Gelukkig zijn de mensen die ik over het algemeen tegen kom op social media positieve, gezellige mensen. Als je iets gemeen hebt waar je over kunt praten, of een idool hebt dan scheelt dat ook weer, maar toch. 

Je wil toch niet dat jezelf ook zo behandelt wordt dus doe het dan ook niet bij een ander. Verbeter de wereld en begin bij jezelf.

© KH

Wednesday Wisdom; I owe you nothing

Some people, especially on Social Media, have to respond on everything you post on your own timeline. They simply can't help themselves it seems. But they seem to forget it is my own timeline; I can and will post and say what I want. If you don't want to read it, simply don't read it or unfollow me. It is quite simple really. You can also sit on your hand for awhile before commenting, that helps too. It makes you think before you speak/write.
A few day ago I wrote something about an article and some people thought I should do this or I should think differently or I was envious perhaps... Maybe I should...
They seem to forget that I am the least envious person there is! I can say I would love to do this or that, but that doesn't mean I would deny others from doing so, or be jealous of them. Or bent over backwords to get it working my arse off. I am a very happy person which doesn't mean I can't have dreams of my own.

Social media is a great thing; I have so many friends through social media. I know it is a public thing, and when you write something it is out in the open for everyone to comment but when people start to control your life or interfere in your life they are the ones that need to take a step back and think about what the hell they are doing? It is not nice advice anymore; it is interfering in something they know nothing about! They don't walk in my shoes, live my life do they? Once they do, then they can comment...

to be continued I guess.

© KH

Quotes and Pics 238; on Social Media

© KH

Think before you...

After almost two weeks without Social Media I am thinking about returning to it slowly only not in the way I did before.
Yesterday I almost fell into the trap again. While watching something on the news that I thought was really ridiculous I wanted to tweet about it. I remembered I had restricted myself from Social Media and couldn't tweet about anything. Maybe that's the trick I thought; Before you tweet anything stop yourself first as if you aren't able to be on any of those social media sites. If later on you still think it is a wise thing to say anything about a subject you still can. But most people (myself included) talk first and think later.
Maybe if peope thought about things first then we wouldn't have the 'Zwarte Pieten' (Black Pete') discussion already in April while it is something that is happening in December.

The reason I wanted to react on Twitter yesterday was related to that by the way. One of the amusement parks in the Netherlands where I am going to for just about whole my life from when I was a kid was being attacked by the same group as those who were against the Black Pete thing. Some people just go too far I think and don't have anything else to do with their lives. Thinking everything amusing is suddenly racist.

Just a fun thing in an amusment park and all of a sudden it's rascism... As long as I can remember people were having fun in the biggest park of the Netherlands singing along to the songs belonging to the different rides. No one ever complained; until now. Must be the weather....

Anyway, it made me think or rethink my part on social media; I always post before I think, write before I think, or even speak before I think. That is why I get in trouble in the first place. I am honest to people I say what I think but not everyone appreciates that. It can also hurt people of course. Sure you can be honest but do people want you to be? I'm not so sure about that anymore.

So I've come to the conclusion that it's okay to be on Social Media, only with moderation.
After all; I have met most of my friends online and what would I do without them!?

© KH

Social media break

Lately I haven't felt all that good, not comfortable in my skin, anxious I've wrote it all down the other day on my blog on menopausal crankiness .
I have snapped at people, online as to  my loved ones, and I was thinking; I always feel I 'have' to do things. I stopped with the 'you have to' bit years ago but not on social media. I'm on various parts of social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, you name it. You check in several times a day to see what's new and there hardly ever is anything new. Just the same old same old. People ranting about the crappy weather, which you like but they don't seem to get, people complaining all the time, people judging other people without even trying to understand their perspective. Of course there is some good things; I've met most all my friends online, I even met my hub online. But.... you seem to 'have to' like everything, respond to everything, 'heart' everything, react to everything. I make a lot of edits everyday. I really like Benedict Cumberbatch but not that much. I was so done with it all, no I am done with it all. I have over 3000 followers on Twitter! It's not that I don't appreaciate those people who seem to like what I do or say, I do! But I can't keep up.

My head was at the verge of exploding so it seemed. I had to take a break from it all. So yesterday I told every social media site I'm taking a social media break.
But now I have a dilemma; Is blogging social media and if it is does that mean I can't write my thoughts here anymore? If I can't write I'll explode! Maybe it's only social if people can respond to it and I should turn the comment section off?
I do feel the need to write every now and again if I feel the need so I can vent my thoughts to someone. To myself mostly. But I also still love making quotes so I might still continue with those. I will listen more to music so perhaps more new music on Sunday blogs to come.. who knows?

Sometimes I write in the hope I learn from it; something that makes me see how wrong I was or how I need to change things. I know I can do that in a personal journal too but this is essentially why I made this blog in the first place; to learn from it, from myself and maybe others can too. I know that my partner with autism blog has helped a lot of women and still does! So maybe there's no harm in writing every now and again still. It will be a big challenge for me as it is to not pick up my phone and check Twitter or Facebook every half hour.

But I'm also looking forward to doing other things again; reading more, writing more, walking, *cleaning my house says* , drawing even which I neglected a lot. Just things I did before social media even was invented. Things I did before I was sitting behind my laptop all afternoon srolling senseless reading stuff and thinking 'what on earth have I done anyway the past two hours?' You waste your life away with your phone in hand at every step you make in life. The first thing you do in the morning? Picking up your phone to see what has happened.... It's not normal now is it!

Well let's just hope I will survive this rehab and can detox a bit.
Writing a blog once in a while isn't the worst of things.

© KH

Social Loneliness

Sometimes I wonder where they all have vanished too; the friends I used to have. Real life friends that is. Nowadays we all have online friends as well; friends we 'talk' to every day on Facebook or Twitter. I have more online friends than real life friends now. In my life I never did have many friends, a handful at a time but it was enough.
They say you change friends every 7 years. It's been nine years now and there haven't been new ones for the ones I lost; the ones that left me hanging after my divorce. The ones that felt I was projecting my hurt on them (which I most certainly was not).

The last of them just stopped contacting me last year. I tried for a long time to keep our contact going but when it is just onesided you stop real quick.
I read an article the other day that people with a lot of social contacts are living longer and that made me worry a little. I have a whole lot of social contacts but I hardly see any of them, I talk to them every day though. Online friends are the best of friends; they are always there whenever you need them, they make time when you need to vent, they are simply there.

But I am sitting at home in my chair talking to them, I love being at home but I think what they also mean by having a lot of contacts is that you are going out of your house to meet with them. I hardly ever do and that isn't healthy of course. Almost all my online friends live abroad. Sometimes I meet up with one who happens to live in my own country.
I don't feel lonely though; I love my home and I can contact my friends whenever I want to;  they're always available. But I get what they mean (you need to get out more) so I have decided to walk more, cycle more and talk with my friends afterwards.

Sometimes I feel like I have been disappointed by my former so called 'friends' too often to make new friends. Making friends with online friends is easier I find. It's not that you don't build on a relationship because you do. You talk about everything with each other, you trust one another and even though a lot of people can't understand it; they sure feel like real friends to me!


© KH

Being Social on Social Media

There used to be a time or at least that is my perception of it; that our country (the Netherlands) was a tolerant country. We were known for our tolerance world wide even. Nowadays with the refugee crisis and social media you really think we've all been the total opposite and not only we Dutch, the whole world is behaving like madmen especially on Social Media! Why is it that when it comes to 'being social' people are the most unsocial they can get?

I am using Facebook and Twitter and of course my blog. I have found online friends via Twitter and other social media that I would never have found elsewhere. I can really say it's my social boost of each day. Every day I talk to my friends on Twitter from all over the world. I have even met some of them in real life and they have become the best of friends. Even my hub I met online through a forum. Nothing wrong with that.
But I have seen a lot of comments from people who think they just are allowed to say just about anything just because they don't tweet/post under their own name.
Shouldn't there be some sort of Social Media etiquette on how to behave? I think you should have proper manners just as in real life where you don't go and call every one names as well but perhaps that's just me.

The same applies for what you put on your Social Media accounts like Facebook or Twitter under your real name. What if you post your silly holiday pictures drunk as a skunk and apply for that dream job a year later? What do you think your boss is going to do before hiring your? Right, he is going to Facebook and Google you! What does he see? The drunk pictures. Goodbye dream job!
Yesterday there was an item on the news here about a mum in England who was angry about her 12 year old son who had bullied a girl at school. She had put her anger about it on Facebook tagging her son for the world to see and doesn't think there is anything wrong with it. But what if he is older and wants that dream job and his future boss Facebooks him? Thank you mum for not handling it yourself but thinking the world had to see all that!

Social Media is meant to be social, or as the Dictionary says it; Social - Relating to or designed for activities in which people meet each other for pleasure.
Pleasure people! Not knocking eachother about verbally!
Some actors or singers have even suspended their accounts because of the harasments.
I hate bullying; this is just grown ups bullying on Social media just because they are anonymous.

Let's all make this world a bit better starting with ourselves. If you don't have anything nice to say; don't say anything at all.

© KH

Changing habits

New Year's resolutions are not for me; I've stopped with those a long time ago. I think if you want to change you can do so every hour of every day. You don't have to wait until the new year to do so. Often those resolutions fail because you really don't want to change anyway. It's expected of you to make changes so you make resolutions.

I started a while back with trying to change my habits. I wasn't happy with how I was feeling. Not only physically but mentally as well. I started eating healthier and with that I'm also feeling better. A few years ago I also started practising Mindfulness. Due to some things in my personal life that influenced the way I was reacting, I let loose of the Mindfulness which I started to feel really. It's not making me happy if I let go of it.
I'm on social media a lot (a thing that makes me happy, with a lot of online friends) but I have found that reacting to negative people (on social media or in real life) doesn't do a lot of good. I need to stop myself before reacting; take a step back, breathe and think 'is it worth the fuss? Is it worth to react to it, to let it get on my nerves?'. If the answer is no (which it usually is) then don't react. 

Life is too short to let people get on your nerves. In real life but also on social media. Life's supposed to be enjoyed. You're the one who can change it, the way you react. Do what feels right. Take away all negativity and start with only to allow the positive in and you will start to feel better. I sure am.

© KH

30 Days Challenge 24, Connect

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who is one person that you’ve been dying to connect with, but just haven’t had the courage to reach out to? First, reflect on why you want to get in touch with them. Then, reach out and set up a meeting.


There is no one really. I find that the older I get the more of a loner/hermit I am becoming and that I really don't mind at all. I connect with a lot of online friends every single day so I am certainly not lonely. That's probably the beauty of Social Media as well. You never have to feel lonely; there's always someone available for a chat.
I have learned that often Social Media friends are more real and true than 'real' friends are. There were real friends have let me down in the past, the social media ones have stuck by me. It's under different circumstances you meet but still it's ever so real. If I want to connect and meet someone it's all those friends I've made through Social media! Those are my true friends who are really so dear to me!

© KH

Lighten up

Sometimes Social Media is very tiresome. I mean it certainly has it's moments and I love it when I get to talk to women around the world, but still it is the written word and some still don't get what you are saying or if you're joking or not.
People tend to put everything you write on a scale sometimes. They put their own spin on it and let's face it; a lot of people just never learned to understand whát they are reading or how it is to be interpreted.

I'm not sitting here boosting my own horn so to speak; far from it! But I hope I know how to read and understand what others write and what they mean by it. Not always of course; it really depends on ones mood. And while we're at it; let's face that as well; don't we all write first and think later sometimes? I most certainly do!

Besides a lot of negative comments we're getting; do we really want those? After all the people on social media are strangers to us all. Do we know them? Not really. There are some who's opinion matter to us and the rest we really should cast aside. Even if it is hard for most.
Negativity will eat and drain your energy. Those energy eating vampires are people you don't need in your life! Try to ignore them and avoid them. If they don't get you it's their loss not yours.

Social media is a nice thing in these days and age but it can get out of hand if you don't control your own feelings about it. There are always people who are not thinking if what they are saying will hurt an other ones feelings or not. The person on the other end of the screen is a real life person after all.

But for the most part it's just real fun to be on certain sites and talk to people around the globe. In my case about one particular actor and his do's and don'ts and his career (and okay I'll admit it; his looks as well) That we also have more than him in common was something I really didn't count on and is something I am grateful for every single day. But as they say in the tv series Sherlock where Benedict (of whom we are talking of course) is most famous these days;
The Universe is never that lazy, Sherlock.
And there was never a truer saying than that!

© KH