Love To Hate

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"Love To Hate"

A few semesters back, one of my students had this tattooed on her wrist. I'm not really sure exactly why she chose this particular phrase, though I think it had something to do with a relationship in her life that she loved and hated at the same time.

However, I was struck by her choice to use the phrase "love to hate" because it shows great wisdom into how we view many of our relationships. I'm not suggesting to go out and tattoo that on your wrist, but I do think her tattoo brings up a good point.

In general, it's easy to be a bad friend. It's easy to love our friends so much and then judge them behind their backs, even if it's just in our mind. This is especially the case with friends who own more material possessions than we do.

When a friend gets a new car, necklace, or a trip to France, we say, "Love it!" We ogle over their trinket, we look up tours for them to take on their trip and tell them how much we love everything about the gift, trip, or house decor. This kind of ogling is especially easy with Facebook.

But the truth is, our love isn't always sincere. Sometimes we only "love" this friend because we desire to be like them. This isn't real love at all. This is idolizing a friend. We put them on a pedestal, hoping to be like this friend one day or have the things they do. We are not a true friend.

When it turns out we aren't like that friend, when we don't get that raise, when our husband doesn't get that new job with business perks and a nice salary, then we're jealous because we don't have what our friends do. We're jealous because we'll have to skip out on the fancy dinner, the matching BMW's, the trips abroad.

We don't have what they do, and we deserve is just as much, right?

Our culture tells us because we were born American, we are inherently entitled to certain blessings and small fortunes. But our culture is wrong.

This particular issue is a challenge for me because Tyler and I are still in the beginning of building our marriage. We are newly weds on one hand, but on the other we have an 8-year-old and hopes of more children sooner rather than later. So it's easy to look at our friends without kids, both working full-time, making plenty of money and compare ourselves. It's easy to look at our friends with plenty of kids, many years of marriage under the belt, with established lives and homes, and feel the same pangs. We're kind of in a category of our own, which has always been the case for E and Me, and now Tyler too.

But by no means are we alone. It's easy for anyone to look at others, because someone else will always have more than we do, and judge their lives.

If I find a beautiful kitchen in a magazine, I want it and love it. But if my friend actually has that kitchen from the magazine and hasn't gone into serious debt to get it, it's easy to judge the kitchen as extravagant and unnecessary. I may even go as far as to think she's wasteful with her money.

But I'm at fault here. I want to truly love my friends. I never want to judge them because I'm really jealous of what they have. The truth is, Tyler and I have more than we deserve. We are blessed and provided for daily.

A heart of jealousy and judgement is one without any thanks.

Also, see my new page, "READ" - I'm channeling the powers of the READ posters by the American Library Association. You know, the ones with famous celebrities you used to see on the walls of your library. It's my booklist for 2013. It will say what I'm currently reading, plan to read, and have already read.

Let's Be Honest - Social Media...Envy and Greed?

Photo by Tyler LaCross

Lately I find myself wanting more and more. I'm always thinking of what I need to buy in order to make our house more cozy, what I need to organize and clean (this is not always bad), and what I need to wear or match together to keep my style in line with what I prefer. I don't think I've always been this way or really believed these things matter.

I think the root of all these things is 1. Believing I need or deserve more than I have; and 2. Surrounding myself with and being gullible to believe social media knows more about my needs than I do.

I've grown to have such a love/hate relationship with Pinterest, Facebook, and Social Media in general. So says the girl writing about social media on her blog. I'm a hypocrite. Yes, I know.

Putting all of that irony aside, I love social media because it allows me to stay connected to people I value who live in other parts of the land or world. But at the same time, I often forget I'm connected to a world (online) where people have extreme control about who they portray themselves to be. While I do love keeping up with my friends, I need to be cautious about what information I allow to seep into my mind.

Often, people post really good or really bad things about life. Isn't this the way it always seems? When there are reviews online or in a magazine, it's either really good or really bad. No one ever cares enough to give a mediocre review for a hotel, restaurant, etc. It's only the people who are wowed or revolted. The same is true of social media. People post what great ideas they have/believe. They post new clothes, pictures of themselves doing something amazing, or new recipes they tried...

Wait, am I describing my own blog?

But so rarely is this a true picture of who they are as a person. And if I'm really honest with myself, this incomplete image of someone's life becomes a great breeding ground for discontentment, greed, and envy in my life.

I see it in the moments where I think:

"Ah. I wish I'd gotten to vacation this past week. Must be nice."

"Oh look..._(fill in name here)_ is pregnant. Everyone is pregnant these days. It's that stage of life...If only we were ready."

"Look at those amazing outfit combinations. Now, if I can go buy another gray scarf, this one lighter than my other gray scarf, and some darker brown boots than I can recreate this look."

The options are endless. I've chosen some randomly shallow examples, minus the baby example, but there are so many ways we desire what others have. However, that incomplete image of their lives takes away from my ability to love that person or care about them. When I envy or want what they have, I cannot see anything else about that person, their life, or what they are experiencing. I can't see pain, suffering, or a place where I can step in and be a friend. I can only see the extra money they have to fly to Hawaii or my own inability to pay for such a trip at this moment in life.

Even if I don't desire their possessions, but their happiness or their outlook on life, I can so easily run down the road of coveting what it is they have just because I compare my life to their incomplete image on Facebook.

It's easy for these social media desires to go unchecked. We simply justify our feelings and either:
1. Get addicted to that person's life and stalk them and their pictures regularly while feeling sorry for ourselves at the same time; or
2. Easily dislike someone we don't know really well without seeming to harm our relationship with that person

In real life, if we envy a friend, it doesn't take long before we see the repercussions of that envy in the way we treat them. We'll snap at any complaint they have or have little sympathy for them. And there is always the "one-up" on how bad our lives are. We simply won't love them well. But on Facebook or a blog, with someone we haven't seen since high school or have never met, it's a different story. It seems as though it wouldn't matter if we like the person or not. They aren't actually hurt by the situation. But our own hearts are not ok. Our own hearts are still crying out about how unfair life is or about our inability to control our own situations.

The truth is we aren't in control, not completely. We are limited by what we are able to do and how we are able to think. And our sinful desires, actions, and repercussions trip us up daily. They prevent us from moving forward and away from envying our neighbor or Facebook friend. Without God's grace and my daily awareness of this issue, I would become sad and bitter towards anyone whose situation seemed better than mine. But things are rarely what they seem. I am learning that every single day, and it is pure joy to be able to love other people wherever they are.