Do you tweet? If you think I’m asking whether you make bird noises or not then it’s probably safe to say you don’t have a Twitter account. The real reason why I’ve posed this question is actually due to the ongoing dilemma I’m having on whether to use Twitter in ways like so many others are doing these days.
For the sake of those who may not know much about Twitter at all, I think it’s best if I begin with a short explanation of what it is. Simply put, it’s a social networking tool that allows each user to send and read a max of 140-character messages, which are called “tweets”. Each Twitter user can also follow the tweets of other Twitter users as well, which is quite similar to how Facebook operates. The tool was created in March of 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass and as of July 2014, it had amassed more than 500 million users with the total number of tweets per day hovering close to a half billion. While I happen to be one of those who have a Twitter account, it’s actually something I hardly use.
Currently, the only thing that’s tweeted from my account on a daily basis is a link to each of my blog postings. I’m also not following anyone else’s tweets at the present time nor is anyone else really following me either. I’ve often asked myself why I continue to keep my Twitter account open knowing this. The only answer I’ve been able to come up with is that I hope to gain more blog visibility. So far after six months of usage it’s apparent I haven’t, which has often led me to thoughts of starting to tweet more like how most others do.
What I mean by that is how the majority of people generally tweet about their everyday life including what they’re doing or where they’re going, or they just tweet their random thoughts and opinions about something. But each time I dwell on whether to start doing this or not, I hesitate because of two very important reasons.
The first deals with knowing the only thing it’s ultimately going to do is feed my ego. Do I really need to feel that important in life by gaining thousands of followers through various tweets about things like what I had for dinner? As I ask this question, I’m reminded of when I watched America’s Got Talent this past summer where judge Howie Mandel consistently told all viewers each show what his twitter account was and how many followers he had. As much as my ego would probably love to have as many followers as he, I’ve worked pretty hard to move in the exact opposite direction spiritually through ego reduction. The fact is all the inspirational spiritual teachers I’ve studied and aspire to be never self-promoted themselves. And truthfully, I think if someone like Jesus or Gandhi ever had a Twitter account back in their day, their tweets would most likely only have been parables or spiritual thoughts for the day.
The other reason why I hesitate to do anything more with Twitter is due to the amount of times I see in the news lately where someone’s tweets have only led them to public outcry and backlash. Take people like Artie Lange, Jason Biggs, and Gilbert Gottfried who each tweeted things that did nothing more than damage their careers and cost them various jobs. Then there are people like Alison Pill, Dean McDermott, and Anthony Weiner who each landed in hot water when they accidentally posted risqué pictures for the public to see when they were only meant for a single person. And of course there are plenty of others who have gone on a rant about something including Alex Baldwin, Mark Cuban, or Lindsay Lohan, where each only gave them more of a negative image. The last thing I would want in life is to create any of this drama by tweeting something that could be deemed unspiritual, negative, or racist.
So I’ve decided for now to play it safe with Twitter by continuing to use it only for the sake of posting the links to each of my daily blog entries. The bottom line is that I truly don’t ever want to end up tweeting anything that could cause more of a negative image upon myself. Neither do I want to ever tweet things that might just end up inflating my ego. And while I may not have large numbers following me on Twitter at this time, that’s almost certainly a good thing if I want to keep cultivating more of what I seek the most of in life, which of course is peace, love, light, and joy…
Peace, love, light and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson