Hi. Twitter sucks now. Maybe one day this'll grow big enough to replace it.
@Idle_Threat It's like when Twitter was new and actual people were chatting with each other, before all the corporations, politicians, celebrities, PR firms, and trolls and bots took over.
@violetxoxox @Idle_Threat It reminds me more of invite-only LiveJournal. I made a bunch of friends!
@evistre I did, too! But for some reason, I didn't get to know any of them really well until we all got on Twitter and Facebook. I'm not sure why, really, but we interact almost every day on those (though on FB far more than Twitter, now — Twitter's gotten so clogged, I don't even see my friends' posts in my news feed most of the time).
@violetxoxox Twitter is pretty crazy these days! Facebook has gotten a little bit better since it seems like everyone's seriously dialed back their use after the Cambridge Analytica stuff went down.
#CoSo is so great, though! There are so many nice people here, from all walks of life, and hardly a troll in sight.
My FB timeline is almost entirely politic-free. I think I'm the only one posting anything about current events.
Otherwise, it's all families, pets, funny videos, requests for recommendations for plumbers... LOL
IOW, it's tolerable.
@ellewoodsruns @violetxoxox Yeah, similar! I post periodic reminders to check your voting registration, and political stuff, but all I see is kids and personal drama. It's better than 2016.
@evistre @ellewoodsruns For the longest time, I was that person doing the whole "We need to fight!" resistance thing, posting political stories every day, but I was constantly deeply depressed. I finally realized all of my friends were already on the same side, so I was really only depressing all of us. We've all been much happier since I went back to posting humorous stuff (mostly stories about goofy things my pets have done) with only an occasional snarky/funny political comment.
@evistre @ellewoodsruns Then again ... I was also the person who was telling all my friends back in 2015 "I really think Trump could win." Oh, how they laughed. But that also helped me realize it doesn't really matter how much I twist myself into a pretzel trying to warn them about stuff, if they're just going to gloss over it. I really started to feel like I was Cassandra. It was frustrating. I'm much happier accepting that this just needs to play out, like everything else throughout history.
@violetxoxox @ellewoodsruns I get that. I can't let go of it, myself. I think it's important to set good boundaries with current events, and I'm definitely struggling to find that balance. I grew up reading stories about the holocaust, though- and every step of the way with Trump has terrified me because of the parallels I saw. I owe it to Little Me to do what I can. So, I write postcards. It's a low-key thing, but I think it helps, and it gets me away from the news.
@evistre @ellewoodsruns Yep, that's exactly me, too ... having read about the Holocaust my entire life and always wondering if I'd been alive, would I have fought back or been too afraid. Now I know I would have fought back. I still DO fight back, I've just changed to doing it in a smarter way than I was. Now I focus on supporting and amplifying the updates of people who have faaaaar more followers than I do rather than write updates myself. I'm much less rundown that way.
@violetxoxox @ellewoodsruns Sounds like a positive change to me! :)
Do you have a favorite method of fighting back & what's your favorite unrelated thing to do with some of your regained time? More pet pictures? 🐱 🐶
@evistre @ellewoodsruns Very favorite method? I purposely try to repost and comment on posts by high-profile politicians that already have a LOT of likes and reposts. That way, not only do I increase their visibility, but any comment I add gets seen by tons more people reading through their comments than if I just posted the same comment to my own status. It works really well!
@evistre @ellewoodsruns And my favorite thing to do with regained time is "feeding" myself stuff that improves my outlook on life (looking for uplifting news stories, listening to TED Talks, podcasts on motivation and productivity, things like that). I look for light wherever I can to counteract the darkness, basically.
Check out Shawn Achor, his TED Talk, his Super Soul Sunday with Oprah, and The Happiness Advantage. :)
@ellewoodsruns Ooooh! I definitely will! Got his TED Talk pulled up and ready to go!
Here's a TED Talk I watched earlier today that absolutely blew me away, and it's got a lot of humor in it, which makes it even better. So this is someone else I want to learn more about:
I already love it from the title!!
Here's a good one, although moreso for men, I love this guy.
https://www.ted.com/talks/justin_baldoni_why_i_m_done_trying_to_be_man_enough
@ellewoodsruns @evistre Checking this one out now.
Another person who turned out to be a total game-changer for me is Paula Stone Williams. I genuinely believe she holds the key to helping both men and women recognize and move forward on gender equality. I believe she has the unique ability to help in a way no one else has even tried before. What makes her viewpoint and approach so unique will be apparent pretty quickly:
There are also two separate TED Talks by Brene Brown, the first on shame, the second on vulnerability.
I LOVE her.
@ellewoodsruns @evistre Wow, Shawn is amazing! I don't know why I've never heard of him, but he's right up my alley. His TED Talk ... that's basically what I did to turn myself around, and the way it happened was I was working to turn one of my best friends around. I'd always been a really optimistic person until the election and that sort of broke me. I got dragged down hard.
@ellewoodsruns @evistre But one of my friends recently got her dream job of a lifetime, and just two weeks in, she was saying she couldn't do it, she wanted to quit, she hated the job and everyone she was working with. So I started her on a personalized intensive "Motivation Diet" where I sent her one uplifting thing with my commentary each morning before she went to work. I systematically kept telling her SHE was in control of how she viewed the situation.
@ellewoodsruns @evistre Long story short, almost immediately her attitude turned around completely, she changed the way she was approaching things, and now she's doing really well, is getting along with her co-workers, and is planning to go to vet school. (Her new job was as a receptionist for a vet.) In the process of working with her, I also got MYSELF back to seeing the light again.
@evistre Because like you, I was sick over Trump and everything that was happening and had been in that state for two and a half YEARS. I couldn't see any light at all until I forced myself to change my approach a few months ago. The depression and constant stress and anxiety was literally killing me. I wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping ... it was so bad.
@violetxoxox @ellewoodsruns I was right there with you saying Trump could win. I remember being sick to my stomach in the few weeks leading up to the election itself.
I suppose this does happen from time to time in history. Nixon wasn't new, he just had more technology to hang himself with. Trump has a uniquely undiscerning megaphone. It always takes a lot of hands to right the ship. :) There's a lot to be said for morale boosting. Pet posts make the world go 'round!
@evistre @ellewoodsruns I kept telling people, "Yeah, everyone thought it was hilarious when Reagan ran for president, too, and look what happened." History really does repeat. But the pendulum has always swung back and forth. The tide WILL turn again. We may take two steps forward, one step back, but one thing that has always been true is that we'll always start moving forward again. The going backward is just a panicked backlash by people who SEE we're moving forward and try to stop it.
@evistre @ellewoodsruns About the morale boosting, yeah ... I realized that since my friends are already on my same side and are trying to fight as best they can, the way *I* could better help the cause is to work on keeping their spirits up, because so many of them are rundown and depressed. So I've decided my best role is to use my skill [of being able to turn just about any mundane experience into a funny story] to try to lift their mood so they can recharge. It seems to be helping.
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