For Real?? (Part 1)

As many of you know, I am a teacher.  I teach high school and I have several seniors each year.  The last few weeks with seniors is exciting.  They are usually happy, excited, energized, and well for lack of a better word -done!  It is hard to keep them focused.  They don't know it when I do this, but I keep them engaged by teaching Life Lessons.  I have tried to do as many life lessons as the year they graduate (ex: I did 14 life lessons for the class of 2014), but that is getting hard, so I might need to rethink that in the years to come. :)

Anyway, one of the life lessons I always teach is Be Real.  We talk about the importance of not being someone or something your not just to impress others.  We talk about not hiding behind masks - with the understanding that we all have to fake it sometimes, but to try not to give a false image. It leads into a lot of great discussions about knowing who you are as a person and developing a healthy self-image.

Then today, I was talking to a close friend of mine about the images that people portray on social network sites.  We were discussing how "real" their status appears.  For the most part, (or at least for the purpose of this blog post :)) people post happy vacation pictures, funny kid stories, positive things at work,  funny jokes they find, and food they cook.  You don't usually log onto Facebook and see a video of the argument someone has had before she got to work or a picture of the burnt meatloaf that your neighbor had to throw away. 

This whole conversation lead me to think about how many people are really - real?   How many people portray a real self image in life?

Before I move on, let me be clear on a few things:

1. I am not saying that you should post all your "stuff" on Facebook.  The point that my friend was making to me was that we should never compare our lives to others lives based on what is seen on Facebook. There is more to life that happens than what others put on social network.

2.  I am also aware that there are always going to be the  Eeyores. People who always seem to post negatives. Although it relates to self-image, it is not the purpose of this post.  (It may be the topic of another post in the future. :) )

3. Finally, I don't want you to think that Facebook posts are really even the point I am trying to make.  It is just the conversation that lead me to the questions:

*Do many people portray a real self image in life?

**What holds people back from being real?

***How can others who struggle with being real, learn to have a healthy real self-image?

In the next few posts, I will share with you how I learned the answers to these questions.