Rememberize through Facebook
There are many options when it comes to capturing life experiences and Rememberizing them. For those who regularly use social media, platforms like Facebook can provide an outlet for sharing those experiences with family and friends. Stan Lockhart, prominent in Utah political circles, has found this to be a successful option for him in both recording the great stories from his life experiences, and sharing them. He shared his thoughts with Rememberize as follows.
Personal History Posts
“All my life I’ve been encouraged to document my experiences through journals or writing a history. I have started and stopped many times. If my posterity saw my journals, they would wonder what happened in between, because what is there is the mundane day-to-day activities of life. They would have a hard time putting together any type of history of my life. So I want my loved ones to see who I am on a platform that will always provide access to these posts.
“At the same time, I’ve become aware that the ‘ever-perfect’ nature of social media is causing anxiety among those who use social media. They see perfectness in others and lots of imperfectness in themselves. It dawned on me that I could address both issues if I were just willing to post about my imperfect life on Facebook, my primary social media outlet. It is uncomfortable proclaiming to the world things that make me who I am, including some things that are embarrassing, but if it helps anyone learn that everyone faces challenges and makes mistakes and that these challenges and mistakes don’t define who we are, then it’s all worth it.
“I haven’t done any planning for my personal history posts. Whatever comes to me, I write about, from random times in life. I’m bouncing back and forth from early childhood to the last few years. It can be a conversation or an object or seeing someone you haven’t seen in a while that will spark the memory. Once thinking about it, I simply write it down on Facebook. It’s easy to do. When family and friends read the posts, sometimes they remind me about part of the story I’ve forgotten so I make a few changes.
“At first, I doubted whether anyone would want to read these stories. They are long, and for an outsider, kind of boring, or so I thought. But immediately, lots of people liked them. Almost every day I’ll talk to someone who tells me, ‘Stan I read your stories. Keep writing them.’ That is all the encouragement I need. For my kids, these posts are, in many cases, the first time they are learning about these episodes of my life. They don’t know what to think about them because they are more private than me. My mom doesn’t use Facebook, but my aunt who lives close to her does use it, and has begun reading my mom these posts. My mom recently told me how much she loves these stories and she wants me to keep posting them. So it’s all good. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to never running for public office again because again I want to be authentic and real and not just that perfect image that we almost always see on social media.”
Links to Stan’s Personal History Posts
Following are links to Stan’s Facebook page, where you can follow him check out his posts, as well as a few direct links to the personal history posts mentioned above. It’s just another way people are Rememberizing.