New Status Update

     Do you remember MySpace?  Remember when they added the "Top Friends" feature?  I was always desperate to be on someone's "Top 5".  I'm pretty sure I only made the cut for two or three people, but I know I was always trying to reach everyone's Top 5 list.  I will be the first to admit that I was OBSESSED with climbing the social ladder.  I spent a lot of my energy worrying about what other people would think about me.  Where did it get me?  Nowhere. I never befriended the popular crowd.  Instead, I realized the value of the friends I already had.  My friends were real, and there were plenty of them.
     Our society is very status-driven.  You wouldn't admit it, but if you tweet, you KNOW you're starving for more followers.  How devastated are we, ladies, when we realize we don't have a shot at being on the Prom Court at school?  We get ridiculously obsessed with celebrities.  We deeply care about our status in this world and will go to great lengths to protect ourselves from "social failure".  The breeding ground for this attitude is the media, of course, and Jr. High and High School.
     Being status driven can work in our favor.  Working harder for that promotion, getting better grades to get the on the honor roll, pushing yourself to be better at sports are all good reasons to be status driven.  The down side to being status driven is when we let superficial, meaningless social pressures affect us so much that we put on a facade for the world.  Walking/talking/laughing/dressing/behaving in a way that is not natural for you means you are compromising yourself for the sake of others.  

Here were some social pressures I remember from High School:

The cool kids wore names across their chests.  Every. Day.

https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQhQwExwCpL90BvK0979yZ1quORWTYyoz6qcL-KFlBpXw9iLhy1


The popular girls all sat at the same lunch table in the lunch room.

https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSb85uZ6qCbItfQ7ESc90uP1kTBvO7fWwWJcuVUy9IVTjAfjqk9xw



The kids that everyone knew about always had stories of their weekends -and they hadn't been bowling.  Stories of girlfriends and boyfriends and parties were widely spread throughout the school...

https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTAnU2fXAeFS535BHtghUnct6IbIoo8gaWBhnDWp6ozh27u2Bym_A


And the girls... They all had the same haircut...

https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQytueaa2ZOHrIIRSDraL5IyxyPab2LwEmVEDiw9MpKINHFMxesUg
https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQjwQGMzOQ-Pl7eRbjBo6j8kgO46D8WuA6E-PWHp-56jlkxd1TghA
https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRmCmnZF_u-_VLRHiqvgjPmtoyXnN7aCKoY8ireBbuDqlbEIUyHEQ


But this is what I saw...

The next time you're ready to update your status, decide if you really need to abandon the old status.  Remember who you are even though the world around you is trying to make you forget.  

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