The title of this is fairly ironic, isn’t it? I agree.

I need to start this blog by stating that almost everything I’m writing is hypocritical. I’m a blog viewer, blog creator, filter user and social media user of all sorts. I look forward to posting photos and the attention I get from them. Said it. I said it. I’m the youngest of six; I can’t help it?

I started to think about something that has bothered me since the blogging fad came to our cyberspace. I think many blogs will give anyone, and perhaps especially women, a false perception of reality.

I think it’s great a woman has Photoshop and access to free filters on VSCOcam or Instagram. Hell-ooo, I’m an avid user.

I think it’s great women have husbands with perfect style. And that they have the ability to take pictures that look candid, and people are laughing, and while doing so, they miraculously never have double chins. I mean really, bravo.  

However, I find several dangers in this. What does pornography provide? It provides a false perception of reality and expectations for men of women, among other things. I’m not here to say looking at blogs is like looking at pornography, because I know, and I will testify, it is not. It’s like comparing biting nails and heroin addiction. But can we consider that having false expectations in itself is not healthy, no matter what the expectations are or where they come from?

I don’t only mean in marriages or relationships, I mean in ourselves.

These false expectations can lead to massive disappointment. How many women seem to have everything together in these posts? Almost all of them. Unless you’re one of the only’s that will put the truth out there.

I find dangers in this because it is one more form of living vicariously.

If you are a sibling of mine, or know my dad well, you might be suppressing a little chuckle. If my dad is the keynote speaker of any event, he will talk about the word “vicarious.” And I can see why.

We have books, movies, television and now we have blogs. I remember being in 7^th grade and reading “Harry Potter,” and for a moment, thinking I lived in Hogwarts. I thought maybe when we died there would be magic, and heaven would be like JK Rowling’s portrayal of the wizarding world. I would be great at potions, and we’d have backyard Quidditch on Thanksgiving instead of football. Real thoughts.

Um? That’s terrifying. I snapped out of it real quick, but it shows how the media has the ability to manipulate how we feel and perceive reality whether for good or bad.

I lived in Hawaii exactly a year ago. I was very quick to post pictures, and why wouldn’t I? I looked tan and the scenery was breathtaking. Any comment or text I received from friends on the mainland was expression of envy. My friends had assumed that my life was perfect because of what they were seeing on Facebook or Instagram.

Well, of course you thought everything was perfect. There was no way I was going to take a selfie of me crying on my bed because my roommate was, I’m sorry, INSANE, or of my boring, boring, want-to-die-like-seriously-kill-me, job. That was eight hours a day of my life. I wasn’t at the beach every second of the day. 

 So no, my life wasn’t perfect there. Was it great? Sure. But so were the lives of my many friends on the mainland.

And what do I mean? I mean exactly what David P. Reid would mean. Vain literally means, “to vanish.” 

The forced smiles, the lo-fied creation, the filtered unnatural depictions we portray online will disappear in the life to come. We won’t take our space in the cyber world with us in the next life. What will we take?

We’ll take the interactions we have everyday. We’ll take fixing our dad’s dinner. We’ll take each time we FaceTime a niece or nephew. We’ll take the moments we spare to write a song, the moments we have a write a note to someone we care about but have neglected.

We’ll take each scripture that shaped our mortal life; we’ll take each prayer in our hearts. We’ll take love.

The purpose of this post is to remind myself, and maybe you that our lives are right here, right now. It is no one else', and it never will be. May we not live vicariously through a stranger, or a friend in the pursuit of something that will vanish from us the day we die. May we create expectations that are realistic and based off true values that matter to us and will continue to matter to us beyond our last breath.

I don’t understand a lot of things. I don’t understand the inside joke of “In-n-Out” (the french-fries are cardboard.) I don’t understand the obsession with “Duck Dynasty,” how “The Simpsons” is now on their 26^thseason, how to efficiently use Twitter, or how Radiohead made more than $3 off any album.

I have been thinking a lot about ideas I don’t understand, and this is one that was easily illustrated in this experience I had last weekend.

I went skiing with my dad last Saturday. One of those days I will probably remember forever, because the snow was that great, and my dad and I had that much fun.

One thing that’s crucial to know about skiing with Father Reid is… well let me just paint you an example.

It was Christmastime, and I just saw “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” which solidified one of my bucket-list goals to climb a Himalaya. Don’t care which one, just not Everest, because, you know. I WOULD die. I vocalized this dream at dinner with my family and some close friends.

My dad then said that doing so would be a vain pursuit. “How do you figure?” I asked.

“To purposefully put yourself in danger for a thrill, or for the mere sense of accomplishment, only to have it vanish in the life to come, is by definition a vain pursuit.” (This is paraphrased, but I’m pretty sure I nailed it.)

I thought for a moment. “Uh-huh, interesting.” Then, facing the rest of my family, I said, “Raise your hand, if you have ever been stuck on a cliff skiing with Father Reid.”

*Every sibling raises their hand.*  And I know we could all testify that this happened on several occasions, and it really was to get fresh snow off the beaten path. Not one of us resents this, in fact we love it.

But…. Hmmm…

Anyway. Skiing with Father Reid is an adventure.

 Last Saturday, Father Reid showed me some parts of Solitude that I had never skied before. As we skied off the face of Powderhorn lift, he saw an open gate to the side of the face.

I missed the gate by about ten feet or so, so I verbalized that I would just tuck the rope a few feet past the gate as opposed to having to do the unnecessary hike up to the gate. Sure, it’s a mountain rules, but really, it makes no difference in terms of safety. It just really doesn’t. Shrug.

As I’m cutting across the slope, I hear a woman talk to my dad. I can’t hear much through the wind and my helmet, but I do hear her say, “Then have her find a different gate.”

Her boyfriend (please let it be a boyfriend, and not husband. What an awful marriage.) says, “Honey…”

“No it’s annoying! People can’t do that. Then people will follow her tracks. Seriously, find a different gate!”

Favorite part of this story: My dad.

“Well. Whatever.”

And we skied down the hill. And it was worth it. And the snow was great.

I heard her boyfriend try to persuade her to ski down and these words actually came out of her mouth: “I’m not going to follow some *insert some derogatory word* into the Devil’s Castle!”

Devil’s Castle? Is this Hogwarts? How do I go there? Is there Butter Beer?

This is when I started thinking about a couple of things. I started to wonder how she would feel had I heeded to her plea and we didn’t ski down that part of the mountain. Was she looking out for our safety? Did she genuinely want to keep us safe?

Why do I so seriously doubt that.

Would she have been so vocal could we see her face beyond her goggles, helmet and gator?

Why do I so seriously doubt that.

Let’s think about when we’re in cars. Let’s think about this box with obvious transparencies that for whatever reason licenses us to be rude to any individual we share the road with. I especially know this because I live in Utah.

Utah breeds some of the sweetest, most Christlike people I have ever met.

It also breeds some pretty self-centered, angered, reckless drivers.

I’m one of ‘em. Which doesn’t paint my point well; so maybe just ignore that bit of information.

Let’s think about Facebook. Let’s think about the ability we have to portray our ideas so forcefully, so irrevocably and rudely to people we are “friends” with. Why is this? Does the shield of an interface give us the right to say distasteful things that had we been in person with these individuals we would not have the courage to say?

Just because we have the protection of say, metal, goggles, a phone, cyberspace, does not mean we are not accountable for the hurtful, insensitive things we say. Those words come from us, regardless of the outlet in which it comes.

Shouldn’t we communicate with others, especially others we are not close with, especially those that we only communicate with via technology, or on the road, or on the mountain, in a loving way?

My point is, often we say things through these masks, not as a way to demonstrate love, but to demonstrate a point. And not because we would have the courage to say these things in person, because we wouldn’t.

Anyway. Just another thing to add to this list of things I will never understand.