{"id":8,"date":"2011-12-16T23:28:30","date_gmt":"2011-12-17T07:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onedesiretogrow.wordpress.com\/?p=8"},"modified":"2011-12-16T23:28:30","modified_gmt":"2011-12-17T07:28:30","slug":"growing-some-balls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/?p=8","title":{"rendered":"Growing Some Balls"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The elephant above is the mascot of my blog. \u00a0She’s not dead, she’s very much living, and connected to her Mother. \u00a0She has everything in life to look forward to, and she’s currently coddled in her Mother’s Womb. \u00a0She has One Desire To Grow. \u00a0“Starting with one desire to grow, the path is laid with seeds we sow”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is very appropriate for this post, as it starts with the FIERCE LOVE that Mothers feel and their desire to protect all children. \u00a0It’s simply biological.<\/p>\n

Recently my Sister-in-Law sparked a debate on her Facebook page about a controversial sleep training method for children. \u00a0She does not believe in the method, and was posting backup articles for her case. \u00a0She was hoping to have a civil debate on the topic, and of course I joined in.<\/p>\n

I was on the other side, but I wanted to hear more about everyone’s views. \u00a0A few of her friends posted their beliefs and experiences (brief) but one in particular just wanted to show her distaste for my Sister’s opinion, offering no back-up or personal experience. \u00a0Several posts later she posted that her husband told her she shouldn’t have joined in on such a controversial subject. \u00a0WHY??? \u00a0I understand that Facebook is supposed to be a social network… but does that mean it’s limited to shallow postings about where you’re eating, or photos of your dog?<\/p>\n

I personally would like to see more postings where I get to know the people that I love and care about more. \u00a0I’m happy to know how my Sister feels about important topics. \u00a0Why is that considered controversial?<\/p>\n

My husband and I had a long drive and a great conversation about friends. \u00a0Who do you love, who could you lose and not miss if you moved away, and why? \u00a0I came to the conclusion that what was important to me in a friend was not the length of friendship, but the quality of that friendship. \u00a0I based that quality on two important qualities: the ability to be deep and discuss your opinions, and the ability to also be fun and silly. \u00a0Lots of my friends on Facebook fell into one or the other category. \u00a0Totally deep, but no fun. \u00a0Totally silly but can’t be deep or is afraid to share. \u00a0There were only about 5 we could list that could do both – and they are amazing people. \u00a0THOSE are the people I want to be friends with.<\/p>\n

About two months ago I started posting a lot of status updates about animals, animal shelters, helping those in need, sharing, caring, etc. \u00a0I was so sad to discover that out of my 209 Facebook friends (friends that I filtered out fairly well) I was only getting thumbs up from a few people each time. \u00a0Sometimes no comments. \u00a0Those people were my Aunt, my Mom, my Sister-in-Law, and a random friend or two. \u00a0When I posted silly photos, or a sale of Cat Shoes at Macy’s, I got 10 comments. \u00a0WHY??? \u00a0This really annoyed me. \u00a0Here were subjects that were of utmost importance to me, and they were being ignored. \u00a0Not even a thumbs up. \u00a0I thumbs up people all the time – for everything. \u00a0It’s a click. \u00a0It’s a “Hey, I feel ya”, not some type of financial commitment or debate.<\/p>\n

I have always been pretty selective about who I hang out with, and here I was feeling dissed by 200 people – not just acquaintances but also my good friends. \u00a0Then I started thinking hard about who my friends are…. and when I checked out their Facebook pages, how many of them were having meaningful conversations? \u00a0Not many.<\/p>\n

Facebook has the power to make change, we’ve witnessed it over and over again all year. \u00a0Where are those people? \u00a0I know about 2 people that frequently support causes on Facebook. \u00a0Does that mean I only have 2 real friends that give a shit?<\/p>\n

Grow some balls people. \u00a0Talk about your causes, make change. \u00a0Remember when I said I was accepting blankets for donation to the animal shelter?\u00a0You don’t even have to drive it there or see their sad faces. \u00a0Please just care about something. \u00a0Please. \u00a0Then share it.<\/p>\n

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The elephant above is the mascot of my blog. \u00a0She’s not dead, she’s very much living, and connected to her Mother. \u00a0She has everything in life to look forward to, and she’s currently coddled in her Mother’s Womb. \u00a0She has One Desire To Grow. \u00a0“Starting with one desire to grow, the path is laid with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onedesiretogrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}