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Aug 7, 2012

Hidden Battles

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
~Plato
I have thought a lot recently about Plato’s quote about everyone fighting a hard battle. I have no doubt everyone must endure storms in his or her life. This life is full of troubles; this is just a simple truth and the price of admission for being alive.
However, in our modern world of self-promotion on FaceBook or other social media, this can often be forgotten – or in some cases, all too evident to which we become desensitized to the status-update hypochondriac. Still, social media is not much different than real life in this regard. People still put on brave faces while suffering deeply in silence or the cry for help goes unheard to ears that have been turned off to the complaints.
We live in a world where ugly things happen – and the really ugly ones are just not appropriate for FaceBook. Most people are reasonably aware of their privacy in what they know they share. (It’s the stuff they don’t realize that is a problem – but that’s another topic.) Many people who have embarrassing or difficult trouble in life probably handle it like Cole from the movie The Sixth Sense, when he said he used to draw pictures about violence, but they school had meetings and his mother cried. Now he just draws rainbows. “They don’t have meetings about rainbows,” Cole observed.
Since we live in social media world, we think we can gauge others by their status or posts. But the truth is these are deceptive, the mask of the clown. The only way to know is to connect with others on a relationship level – on a human level.
Not everyone will share openly when asked. Sometimes they can not share, especially when carrying the burden for another. So, ask your close friends and loved ones from time to time, but even then you can’t assume the rainbows or their responses are real. So, in all cases, just be kind – everyone you meet is probably fighting not only a hard battle, but it may also be a hidden one.

1 comment:

  1. Excellent reminder! I don't choose to share much publically, unless I happen to set the stove on fire, and that would surprise alot of people!

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