Sharing One Second on Social Media

You would never know.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day and 604,800 in a week. A picture on social media is one second in someone’s day. 1 out of 86,400. Do you think one second summarizes the other 86,399? How about the 604,800, much less a life? Not likely.

Can you smile for one second? Laugh? Have everything arranged? Clean? Of course you can. Anyone can no matter what’s really going on in their life. It’s just one second after all.

So based on this smiling picture of me, you would never know how all my other seconds are being spent unless I told you.

I paint beautiful things and share pretty photos. Last weekend I painted my Bible. Based on such pictures you wouldn’t know I deal with chronic pain on a daily basis, thankfully at pretty manageable levels, but this week I’ve had a flare up and have been in and out of the hospital doing tests to make sure nothing is going horribly wrong. (I’ve verified nothing is going horribly wrong and it’s just an intense flare up.) It’s difficult to eat, walk, sit, lie down, or sleep. Flare ups are sometimes like this. It’s simply the nature of chronic conditions—they can be an unpredictable rollercoaster. Much like the rest of life.

Social media has gotten a bad rep for being a highlight reel, but I don’t think this is a bad thing. The presentation of high points doesn’t mean there’s an absence of low points. It’s just what we prefer to share with the world, prefer to capture, remember, and talk about. I don’t think we do this to pretend the low points aren’t there—I think we do this to dwell on the good things, to cling to what is good. To dream. To hope. To squeeze more happiness and gratitude out of happy times.

So keep sharing the goodness in your life. Share what’s going well, bringing you joy, and making you laugh. We could all benefit from focusing on good gifts of God’s grace, and some of us need reminders that high points still exist and life isn’t all bad because we happen to be struggling right now.

Share also what’s hard, what’s a struggle, and what you need help with. We could all benefit from reminders that this life can be difficult, that each of us needs God, grace, compassion, prayers, and care. We need reminders that we aren’t alone in the dark valleys.

So enjoy the content of social media. Seek out what is helpful to you. Share high and low points from your life. You never know who needs to see what you have to share—good or bad.

Your one second could help someone else with their 86,400.