This is a continuation of my previous post on “Growing up with Facebook, Part 1.” Where I left off at, I was explaining how . . .

Nowadays, virtually all kids have cell phones, many of them have computers, and they’re now able to make and stay in relationships, using Facebook and other social+networking" rel="tag">social networking sites, which collectively will mean they won’t have to say goodbye to one another. Their list of friends can simply grow larger and larger and, for a lot of them, they’ll probably stay in touch… Not all, but let’s just say a lot of them will. And, years later, what will they be like??

The point I was trying to make was that I grew a lot (socially, psychologically, intellectually) by not staying in touch with a lot of the people who I had previously allowed (taking personal responsibility here) to limit my thinking, influence my values, etc. such that keeping my distance from them has allowed me to grow in ways I would not have grown otherwise.

Sure, a lot of those same people influenced me in positive ways as well, but had it not been for the distance, I might not have learned to grow on my own. I think it would have been sad to have not had the opportunity to grow in my own way, and in my own time.

I liken someone’s socio-psychological growth, metaphorically, to the growth of a bean stalk. If you grow a bean stalk next to a stick, it’ll grow up nice and strong alongside that stick. You tie it to the stick and it gives the bean something to lean on. However, if you grow a plant without that stick, it’ll still grow, probably not as straight and tall, but however much it grows, it will have done so on its own. Now, if you take the stick away from the first plant, it’ll probably fall because it’s growth was predicated on leaning. The second plant never had anything to lean on, so its growth was more autonomous.

We don’t always know what will happen in our lives, so oftentimes, when a situation develops beyond our control, where we’re no longer able to lean on those who’ve always been there for us . . . we either crumble (because we never learned how to take care of ourselves), or we thrive (because we had previously learned how to live without the support of loved ones).

I wonder how the current generation will develop/ mature as time goes on, insofar as they’re not allowing themselves the same kind of distance from close associates that I had, which led to a lot of growth — a lot a good growth.

In the end, I guess time will tell. It always does. I just wonder about these kinds of things sometimes because there’s a lot of people from my past who, quiet as it’s kept, I don’t really care to get back in touch with. I’d like to know that they’re doing alright, but beyond that, I can only imagine that there’s a good reason why we haven’t stayed in touch over the years — and I’m comfortable with whatever that reason might be.

After all, I’m no longer single. I’m a happily married man, and (like most happily married men) I don’t live the way I used to live. I don’t think the way I used to think. I’m 1000 times more responsible and in control of myself than ever before, and when I engage certain personalities from the past, they remind me of a time when none of this was true about me; a time when I had a lot less to be proud of. It’s not anything to do with social networking privacy issues; I feel comfortably secure in where I’m at these days, and I work for myself; I just don’t feel as if I have very much in common with them any more.

So my thinking has simply been to “let sleeping dogs lie”; like the Beatles used to say, “Let it be.” There’s a lot to be said for social networking, no doubt, but apparently there’s a lot to be said for the lack of social networking also. In the end, it still appears that we’ll make of our lives what we will, despite our greatest technological challenges and/ or discoveries. I don’t know for sure. I’m not that smart.

What I do know is that I’ll remain on Facebook. I’ll just remain mindful of what I am and of what I’m becoming, rather than what I was.

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