lent – Anna Down South

I was thinking about accountability. I was also thinking about growth and how the internet is a highlight reel. I was thinking about how all these things mix together. For younger people it’s harder to process the fact that you’re not seeing everyone life as it actual is by following them online. Adults know that, and we know that well, but we have no drive to make dents in our online perception because we all like looking better than we actually are. We like to display ourselves as if we have no room for growth, because we are, for lack of better terms, fully grown.

I don’t want the internet to know all my darkest secrets. I’m really careful about not posting anything that will come back and bite me later on. I worry about what I like and how it would effect me if someone I knew scrolled through every single Favorited tweet of mine. It’s something to be careful about- after all employers, colleges, and people in powerful positions are known to do that.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be held accountable for my failures, because being accountable for them helps you grow, and no matter what social media portrays we all have a lot of room to grow. So how do we frame our online landscape to push us towards growth and help us become more?

Part of that is following people who inspire us, who teach us things, who motivate us, and who do so with honesty not envy. We need to follow people who are accountable and who are open. That doesn’t mean that they blast their mistakes with reckless abandonment, but it does mean they share their growth that came from past mistakes. It’s a easy way to say “yes I mess up” but also “I’m better off now because I corrected it”.

I don’t really find myself inspiring or motivating, but I thought I’d share some of my recent mistakes with you and what I learned from them. Then at least I can try to take steps toward inspiring and motivating myself.

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I used to give up things for lent as a child, we didn’t make a big deal of it, but I remember doing it. This year I decided to give up gluttony, which looks like giving up late night snacks, eating less overall, and eating better overall. I decided I wanted to partake because I realize that I’m bad at giving things up.

We don’t talk about sacrifice enough when we talk about getting our goals. We streamline the discussion by talking about hard work, like those two things are completely interchangeable, but they aren’t. Sacrifice is hard work, but working hard doesn’t mean that you’re truly sacrificing, especially if it is hard work you enjoy.

The point of sacrifice is that you’re giving up something you don’t want to. The point of sacrifice is to suffer now in order to succeed later on. In terms of your life it means later on in the years, in terms of your soul it means later on in the next life. But either way you have to give things up to get anywhere.

The path you are on has lead you to where you are now, but you might not get any farther if you don’t change yourself. You might be stuck here or stuck inching along at a snails pace forever. You don’t want that, but you might deserve that with how you’re currently living.

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