Stop Sharing Grievance Posts

In the coming months, you may feel tempted to share the next grievance post that comes across your screen. You may want to do this because you feel outraged at the pain caused to the individual in the post or because you hate the people who caused the pain.

Regardless of your motivation, I urge you to avoid sharing that meme, video, or text post that claims to expose some so and so doing some violent and tragic things.

Sharing such posts creates a false sense of helpfulness and compassion. In reality, by sharing, you are doing nothing, nothing good anyway.

You may think you are doing activist work—you’re not. You may feel that you are supporting your team or message, you’re not.

In actuality, you are stroking your vanity. You want to feel good about yourself as if you were doing something selfless for the greater good.

The feeling you get when you share something upsetting on Facebook or wherever is a product of self-deception. This self-deceived feeling keeps you from really acting, really helping people.

Self-deception is what Facebook and other platforms like it have been in part designed for, and it affects everyone. If you are tempted to think while reading this that I am talking about someone else, I am not.

I am talking to you.

You are at this very moment deceiving yourself. By being on social media, you are taking part in the act of self-deception at one level or another, an act made strong by the types of things you like and share.

The first step in breaking your deception is to stop pretending that you are helping the world in some grand way when you share a post about your favored political party being attacked or a kid being shot. You have to realize that what you are actually doing is using tragedy, not for any real good, but rather so that you can reach for some clout or social recognition.

It seems harsh, but you have to stop fooling your self. Quit leveraging other’s misfortune so that you can get likes on social media.

Instead, do something in the physical world, without hope of reward, and act for the good of those around you. Cook a meal for your spouse, take your kids to the park, be a shoulder to cry on, or donate to someone in need.

The sooner you stop deceiving yourself, the sooner you can do real good in the world.