Delete That: (and Other Failed Attempts to Look Good Online)

by John Crist

I read somewhere that the internet allows you to feel every possible human emotion inside of twenty seconds. You can be happy, depressed, angry, thrilled, turned on, disgusted, jealous, and inspired all in less time than it takes to microwave a Hot Pocket. I don’t think our minds are suited for that kind of perpetual emotional roller coaster.

The thing is, dopamine doesn’t know right from wrong.

Our self-worth is completely wrapped up in the approval of others, most of whom are virtual, if not actual, strangers to us.

Everyone’s biggest fear is that something they were doing in private is now going to be public.

Out there on the road, I was larger than life. Back at home, I was taking out the trash and picking up the mail like everyone else.

was already beginning to understand that there was a difference between the person you really are and the person you show to the world.

Nevertheless, that day I started to understand something important about the relationships between children and their parents: They may be formed when we’re young, but they don’t stop when we turn eighteen or move out of the house.

What was once your semiprivate failure becomes a public spectacle.

Embarrassment sometimes feels more public than it really is, though.

We spend all our lives so focused on our own lives that we eventually start thinking that everyone else is thinking about us too. But they’re not. They’re thinking about themselves. It would have been nice if I could have learned that lesson back then, but all these years later, I still kind of think that. My video this week didn’t get as many views as normal. I bet everyone is talking about how much of a failure I am. The truth is, we each may be the biggest star of the movie playing in our own head, but in everyone else’s head, we’re just extras.

Learning how to win and lose with grace is kind of the point.

I guess that over time, you build up a thick skin. Rejection hurts less. Or maybe it doesn’t hurt any less, but the knowledge that it is not terminal, but temporary, certainly makes it easier to deal with.

We’ve all been there, despondent and not knowing if or how the world will ever continue. (Spoiler alert: It will.)

But social media has exacerbated this to such an extent that doing good is no longer the end in itself. If no one sees you do good, it’s like that proverbial tree falling in a forest: It might as well have never happened.

Millions of Christians across the globe are being persecuted and killed because of their faith in Jesus, but American Christians are so concerned with how others are perceiving them that they need a little pat on the back, me included. Kind of embarrassing.

Whenever someone makes a mistake, there is an immediate online outcry for the person to be fired, boycotted, excommunicated, burned at the stake, or somehow canceled.

Aren’t we sophisticated enough as humans to understand that great art is often made by very flawed artists?

My therapist listened and then shook his head. “I bet if Jesus saw you there, he’d sit down right next to you. He’d say something like, ‘You think I don’t know what it feels like to be alone? All my closest friends left me to get crucified. I know loneliness. You think I don’t know what it feels like to be sad? My friend Lazarus died. I know sadness. I am here with you.’ ”

It’s a great paradox that we all deal with on some level: I want everyone to look at me and love me, but I don’t think I’m worth being looked at or loved.

I had everything I’d ever wanted and I’d never been so miserable in my life.

The exposure—not the behavior—brings the shame.

I was almost certainly being denounced in public, but privately, people understood. That meant something.

I’d grown up imagining him as a disciplinarian enforcing a strict set of rules. In my mind, he was like a principal constantly calling me into his office, reviewing my behavior, and marking where I’d fallen short: You stole a piece of candy; you looked at porn; you got drunk; you lied to that woman about your feelings.

I was just learning to be okay with being known for who I really was by being around people who already were.

There’s nothing I’m afraid of people finding out about me. The darkness had come into the light, and it held no more power. If that’s not a Bible verse, it sure sounds like one.

Carrying secrets is tough, man. Rehab was filled with people who’d hidden the messier parts of their lives—addictions, infidelities, mistakes, crimes—for so long. Those secrets bred shame. That hiding is a burden no human is equipped to carry.

My whole life I’d been taught that if I wasn’t acting right, if I was feeling sad, I just needed to pray harder and read the Bible more. Antidepressants felt like an unchristian admission of failure, of imperfection.

This is all part of the distance between who we are, who we claim to be, and who we aim to be. In a perfect world, all three of those would be the same. But this is not a perfect world, and none of us are perfect people.

Empathy, on the other hand, takes work. It takes experience. It takes knowing what it feels like to be the victim of someone else’s quest for self-gratification, understanding what it is to be the person who messed up, and being able to access all that in a moment when your own selfish instincts are pushing you in the opposite direction. In this way, I think empathy is something we work toward, not something we ever fully achieve.

What happened to me, having my life turned upside down in public, was horrible, excruciating, and embarrassing. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, really and truly. But the only thing I can imagine being worse is if it had never happened.

It’s okay to acknowledge, to own up to the less noble, less glamourous, more troubling sides of our humanity. In fact, it’s vital.