I used to be turning 50 just a few months in the past and I used to be a bit apprehensive about it. It’s a milestone birthday that felt a bit extra palpable — like it hit me more durable than different birthdays.
Following swimsuit with a few of my classmates, I made a decision to publish an image of me on Facebook denoting my half century on this earth.
I’ll have to admit I used to be a bit down that day for some cause. But what got here subsequent turned my temper on a dime.
I acquired many optimistic feedback on social media. It actually gave a lift to my vanity.
As I had that feeling, it dawned on me that I must be extra supportive of others on social media as properly. I wished others to have that good feeling I had on my birthday when these messages got here in.
Yes, social media could be a lengthy, darkish tunnel of negativity. Well, it wasn’t that day I turned 50 and I vow to do my half to add some positivity and light-weight.
So that’s my aim for this yr and past. And you might be welcome to be a part of me.
Let’s not overlook that probability to give somebody a form comment both in individual or on-line. I’ve a aim to make extra connections, whether or not at my work on the Y or in my time about city.
We could be completely happy for others with out having to examine them to our personal lives. We are all on this world on the similar time in historical past collectively. That ought to imply one thing.
Maybe it is a pie-in-the-sky dream that we will make a distinction.
Even although we’d not change the world, we will make folks really feel higher in that second.
And that’s not nothing.
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Andrew Potter is the Marketing and Communications Director for the Marshalltown YMCA-YWCA.