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.