When going through pre-marital counselling with my wife years ago, one book we read together was The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Basically the premise is that people experience “love” differently through 5 basic languages.
- Words of Affirmation,
- Quality Time,
- Receiving Gifts,
- Acts of Service, and
- Physical Touch.
So, if you didn’t feel “loved,” perhaps your significant other was simply not speaking your “love language.”
If YOUR love language is “quality time,” and maybe you have been spending quality time with your significant other, but if her “love language” is “Words of Affirmation,” you will think you are showing love, but she will think you don’t care about her because you don’t affirm it. You don’t SAY it.
Well, my primary “love language” is most definitely “Words of Affirmation.”
Why do you need to know this?
I read this post on one of my favorite pages to follow about giving advice to other parents “dipping their toes” into being an autism blogger on Facebook.
1). Don’t chase “likes.” You’ll end up sacrificing your core principles.
I got about that far.
When I first started out, I had virtually NOBODY following me, except my personal friends. So I reached out to as many different pages as I could in order to get a following. And I did. People began “liking” my page and each time I saw another person “liking” my page, it was like getting a little hug. It was an affirmation of what I was doing.
Then I started comparing how many people “liked” my page versus how many people “liked” other pages.
That’s where it got dicey.
That’s when went from being “a support tool” for US to being a “popularity tool” for ME.
I started craving “likes.” When I saw people “unliking” my page, it made me want to know “why” so that I’d be sure to “not post” things like whatever it is THEY didn’t like again. I wasn’t dictating what went up on my page, my followers were.
I’d toy around with “monetizing” a post so conveniently available to us page owners where Facebook promises to reach “20,000 people for a mere $30,” even though there was no monetary gain for me from it. Just popularity and “page likes.”
I discovered that I can become SO addicted to getting people to “like” my page that I forget about why I run the page in the first place.
Then I have to remember:
My self-esteem is not based
on how many people “like”
my Facebook page
To that, I say, “This is just our journey. Our mountain to climb. Some people’s mountains will be steeper than others. Some will be easier. And that’s fine.”
Our family has had to just learn to adapt to a “new” level of “normal.”
Upon reflection, I wish there was a way I could “hide” how many people like my page, because honestly, it shouldn’t really matter.
I don’t want to think about the fact that my content might be is stale, or that I haven’t had a good meme idea lately or that the quality of my content is not what people have come to expect.
I will post when I feel inspired to post. I will share what I feel compelled to share. I am okay with not posting for a while and I am okay with losing followers as long as I am being true to myself.
My page is not my identity. My aim is, and always will be, to find support from other parents, vent when I am struggling, get advice from those who have been there, share my victories and my challenges, and help and support others looking to do the same.
I will applaud when I see other pages getting attention (and not mine) and I will NOT CARE that another “identical and not nearly as well-put-together” meme got more shares than mine.
I will remember that, while people may visit my Facebook page and chuckle at the new “meme” I thought up, it is NOT my job to entertain them.
It IS my job to be as good of a father, husband, and person as I can.
In the end, I like Blogging about our journey. I like running a Facebook Page. I like that my page is liked. But I don’t care ‘how much.’