#ADULTING, part 2: How To Handle Social Media

I originally wrote most of the #ADULTING series during Winter Break. But in typical me fashion, I decided to unload my thoughts on social media today, and I figured that it fit into the series. Enjoy!

When we millennials were young, social media was completely new. It represented the great frontier of technology, a place where we could communicate and get to know each other on a whole new level. A decade and a half later, it appears to have woven itself into the general disillusionment of our age. There are many, many articles about the pitfalls and evils of social media, and yet platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat are still growing. With social media becoming a fixture of modern life, is there anything we can do to use it in a way that is enjoyable and edifying? People can and have written whole papers and theses on this; I am not one of those people. However, I do have three tips that might help if you keep reading.

Tip # 1: Use social media to ACTUALLY connect with people

The best thing about social media for me has been connecting with people who I wouldn’t be able to contact as much if it didn’t exist. For example, I’m Nigerian-American, and a decent proportion (read: practically ALL) of my extended family lives abroad. In particular, I have three cousins around my age who grew up in Nigeria and who I literally did not meet in the flesh until about 1-3 years ago. But before I met them, I had contacted them and I knew a bit about them. You know how? (..other than my Nigerian parents telling me about their school progress to er, motivate me?) Social media! I followed my cousins on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram long before I met them; in that way, I could at least get a sense of who they were and what they liked, and even chat with them as time passed. 

I also have seven cousins who grew up in London. Just this past summer, I started a group chat on Facebook with three of them about the World Cup. It was so much fun being able to connect with them over an interest that we all share, and Messenger made it easy to contact them at literally a drop of the hat.

I believe that social media is at its most enjoyable when it is used to connect with people. I suggest using it when you want to communicate with people, not just when you want to stalk their profiles. If your friend’s Instagram story inspires you, reply to their story and tell them! If you find a funny video, share it with a friend so you can both laugh at it. If you love a photo or a post from a friend, double tap AND leave a nice comment for your friend to reply to. Start group chats with friends about common interests, whether it’s soccer or The Bachelor. Isn’t that what social media was supposed to be about in the first place?

Tip # 2: Protect your feed

One of the major complaints I hear about social media is that it constantly puts us in a position to compare ourselves with other people, leading to insecurity. In the Passion Translation, Proverbs 4:23 says “Guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being…” When you look at the social media accounts of people who portray perfection, on purpose or on accident, and when you spend time comparing yourself to them, it hurts you at your innermost being by making you insecure about who you are. That insecurity, as harmless as it seems, affects your thoughts, your actions, your interests—everything that you are, because you feel like you have to live up to a standard that wasn’t made for you and that may not even be achievable. I have a simple solution for this: you ain’t gotta follow those “perfect” people! Many of them are influencers and/or celebrities who have enough followers that they won’t notice if you unfollow them. And if it IS someone you know? You’ll probably be a better friend to that person if you are not constantly comparing yourself to them. You are a better friend to other people when your soul is secure; protect your soul.

Another thing that can be agitating: if you follow politics and current events to the extent that it continually puts your soul in a state of hurt, anger and/or depression. Please hear me out on this. It is good to be civically involved. It is good to defend causes that you are passionate about. But if it is hurting your emotional and spiritual state more than it is helping or changing anything, you may need to cut back for a bit! 

There is a popular philosophy out there right now that says, “you can’t do everything, but you MUST DO SOMETHING.” Essentially, it means that if you don’t add your voice to things, then nothing will be accomplished. I…only sort of believe this. Yes, every person has a sphere of influence. If you agree with something and make that clear, the people in your sphere of influence are much more likely to take your words seriously than they would take the words of some politician or celebrity who has nothing to do with them personally. And there are some issues where previously we have expected some sweeping law or some nice quotes from a famous person to fix it, when in reality nothing gets fixed unless we actively try to fix it. (One of those issues is racism.) 

BUT…do I feel that I have to have something to say about…every issue…that goes on? Not really, no. Honestly, a lot of times, when some big company comes up or some celebrity does something wrong, I feel there are enough people making comments about it…and posting similar opinions to mine about it…that if I add my opinion, it’s merely another identical voice in everyone else’s chorus, and it does nothing to add to the conversation. It just starts fights on my feed and makes ME upset. iI don’t know about you, but for my emotions’ sake, I can't afford to let every issue or insult or event in the media get to me. I've found that some issues or events are big enough that everyone else will be upset for me!!! In those cases, where I know that looking up that event will do nothing but upset me, I refrain from getting into the conversation. That way, I can keep my joy and focus on what I’m created to do rather than focus on every single thing that’s happening in the world. I am not God, and I cannot deal with every single tragedy that goes on every day. Sometimes I simply have to hand it over to him and move on!!!

I’m not saying that you should close yourself off to the world around you or put yourself in an echo chamber. But it’s no secret that what we look at on social media affects us mentally, emotionally and sometimes even spiritually. If your feed is yours to control, why don’t you follow accounts that inspire you, lift you up and make you feel better? It can only help you.

Tip # 3: Limit your time on social media

Even at its best, social media can be quite a big time-waster. A success coach i listen to, Terri Savelle Foy, once described TV as “watching other people live their dreams”. I think I would include social media in this category as well, except often it’s watching people pretending to live their dreams. In both cases, there is a point where it becomes less productive to spend time watching other people live out their stories than to live out your story. There is value in watching other people live out their stories; it provides inspiration and connection. But the only story you get to live out is yours. Don’t spend your entire time looking at other people’s lives while yours passes you by.

There is also value in living life as it is, uncurated and unfiltered. If you’re at a concert, do you really need to Snapchat every single moment? You spent your own money to be there in the flesh and enjoy your favorite artist; take time to enjoy that concert for yourself, and sing at the top of your lungs. If you’re out with your friends, it’s great to take photos in order to preserve memories, but it’s even better to spend time with your friends and create memories so good that you don’t need a photo to remember them.

The best way I’ve found for limiting social media time? Delete the app off your phone, and download it back from the app store when you want to take a look. Your account will still be there for you when you come back, and in this way you can resist temptation to look when you shouldn’t be looking.

iOS 12 also has this wonderful app called Screen Time, which allows you to set limits on how long you use apps. The only problem is that you can always extend your limit 15 minutes more, meaning that the temptation is always there.

Hope this helped somebody!

#ADULTING: Tips To Get Organized and Get Your Life Together! Part 1: FOOD

Am I the type of person who should be writing a post on how to adult? Maybe not. I have some credentials that make me look like my life is perfect, but anyone close to me knows that I do NOT always have my life together. This past semester, to be honest, was one of those times. I did okay in my classes, but by the end of it I was drained mentally and emotionally, I was physically far from my best, and my spiritual life was not exactly doing the greatest either. I started this post mainly to tell myself what to do in the event that I find myself spinning out of my own control again. I share it because I’m pretty sure someone can relate.

As I wrote this, I realized that the topic of "adulting" and of "getting one's life together" has far too many facets to just be put in one post. So I present to you my newest series, starting with part 1: practical tips to get your FOOD together. 

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On Eating Healthy…And NOT EATING OUT!

Here’s the thing. I know what to eat in order to be healthy: fruits and vegetables, healthy protein, some carbs (not too many carbs), and keep away from fried foods and candy. I was raised by a health nut (AKA my mother) who barely allowed sugar and salt to even exist in our house, let alone be put on things that we ate. And even if I didn’t learn everything from her, I could learn everything I need on the internet. For how obese we tend to be, Americans have so many fad diets and other diets and tips and tricks in order to eat healthy. Vegetarianism, veganism, macros and micros, ketogenic diet…those are just a few of the trends right now. And all of those things are good, but my problem isn’t finding what foods to eat. My problem is preparation.

My favorite method of procuring food is the grab-and-go: find something that is on the shelf and consume it. The problem is, because I don’t always take the time to prepare healthy food for the shelf, I find myself doing the next fastest thing: eating out, or even worse, using Uber Eats, which is like eating out but nearly doubled in price because of delivery fees. The result is a guaranteed drained wallet, and either gaining or losing weight depending on whether I eat too much McDonalds meals or only subsist on one meal a day plus snacks in order to sustain the Uber Eats habit.

What I need to do this year. Also, there is an actual site called stopubereats.com. The magic of the internet!

The solution is meal prep. Meal prep is when one takes an hour or two out of the schedule every week to prepare large amounts of breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. That way, for the rest of the week, when my hand is reaching to the shelf, it grabs the healthy meals that I made myself instead of grabbing my phone. And ideally, I don’t have to meal prep more than twice a week. I like cooking, but not THAT much.

For breakfast, lately, I’ve been buying instant oatmeal from this brand called Better Oats, which has oatmeal with flax seeds. Whenever I eat that for breakfast, I feel very energetic and ready for the day. Since I’m kind of a hungry horse, though, I need more than one packet!

For lunch, I like sandwiches, so ideally I'll prepare four or five sandwiches with cheese, turkey, spinach, red onion and spicy mustard. Delicious, healthy, and (importantly!) very portable for school. I usually supplement this with snacks such as clementines, strawberries, carrots, or (maybe) a fruit snack packet or two, though I’m currently weaning myself off the latter.

Dinner is probably my most creative meal. As I said, I actually do like cooking sometimes, and the amount of food shows I watch (Chef's Table, Worst Cooks In America, The Great British Baking Show...) has sparked an interest in finding new recipes. My favorite recipes have four things in common: they are absolutely PACKED with flavor (not necessarily spicy), they don’t take too long (a med student’s got to study), you can make lots of it in one or two goes, and they have three food groups in one dish: veggies, protein and carbs. My two favorite recipes for dinner so far are coconut chicken curry with rice from Epicurious, and Moroccan chicken stew from Plated. (The recipes are linked—thank me later.) As I get ready to publish this, however, the last dinner I made was even quicker than those two: fried rice with spinach, onion, eggs, soy sauce and sesame oil. 

For hungry horses like me, snacks are very important. I usually try to buy fruit—strawberries, oranges, apples, grapes, and nectarines when they’re in season. Fruit is not the cheapest thing on the planet, but I find it a lot more filling than cheaper, carb-filled snacks such as chips or even Nature Valley bars. For vegetables, I find carrots to be the most accessible, mildly tasty, and cheap (I've never seen a bag of carrots, even organic carrots, above $3). Whenever I bring a pack of carrots around my friends, they always want to take some! As far as carbs, as I said, I have a slight addiction to fruit snacks and sugary cereal that as I publish this, I am in the process of breaking (pray 4 me), and I like popcorn and some type of crackers (Club crackers, Wheat Thins). For proteinaceous snacks, almonds remain my favorite, though they’re also not exactly cheap.

Okay, you say, you’ve given me food suggestions, but WHEN can I find the time? That’s the real question. Again, ideally with meal prep, you should only be preparing food once or twice a week. For me, it’s lunch and dinner, so I have to split that into two days. Five sandwiches takes me much less than an hour. Dinner definitely takes longer; with preparation it can be as short as an hour, without it can be over two. The thing is, in order to study, you need ATP (energy), and most ATP comes from food. So meal prep time is not wasted time!

ADDENDUM: This January, I've been able to mostly follow my own food advice (I wrote most of this post during Winter Break), and where I've really seen a difference is in the way I feel. Last semester, when I was eating out a lot, I felt lethargic a lot of the time. My chest hurt, my stomach felt loaded down, my legs ached, and I would get chest pain whenever I ran a short distance. Now, having been eating pretty healthy for most of the month, most of those symptoms have gone. I still get mildly achy if I haven't exercised in a long time, but compared to last semester, the aches have gone down considerably, and I feel like I can sprint if I need to (for example, to catch a bus). 

For me, eating healthy hasn't really been about getting my "ideal body"--it's about feeling better and having more energy for the day. Part of adulting is dealing with the fact that our bodies aren't getting any younger, and that as we get older, our bodies get less tolerant of crappy fuel (i.e. junk food). I'm not planning to NEVER eat junk food again (doing that nearly guarantees that I WILL eat junk food again), but I hope to keep following my own advice, because I am literally feeling the benefits as I write this. 

No New Friends?

This summer has been an interesting one for me. The nature of my research means that I have a ton more free time than normal, which is amazing. But the downside to having two months off from med school is that all of my school friends are off doing their own thing, and because I had no connections to the LA area before med school, I realized that I actually had very few friends in LA.

Drake coined the phrase “no new friends”, and I feel like that’s how millennial society approaches friendship. Friends—real ones, anyway—come few and far between, and once you leave school, you essentially have no chance of making any more real friends, so keep your real ones close and keep the rest of humanity at arm’s length. This is a decent philosophy—that is, if you stay in the same area and never move to a new place. For those of us who do make moves across the country to places where you don’t know a soul, we have to revise that a bit, don’t we?

The Bible says, “He who wants to have friends must show himself friendly.” Even our best friends start as people we’ve never talked to before, and it takes time—and multiple conversations—for people to become acquaintances, and even more of that to become friends. Many people (including me, as I found out this summer) stop right before the first conversation. It’s always awkward, and there’s the nagging fear that the person won’t like you or won’t want to hang out with you or will ALWAYS be too busy to hang out with you. As annoying as this sounds, the way to overcome that is to push past the fear and start reaching out to people. That doesn’t mean that you don’t feel any fear; you’re just not letting it dictate what you’re going to do. You’re taking control of the situation.

So without further ado, here are some tips for people who need to make new friends:

1.     As said above, you’re going to have to take control over your fear (AKA timidity or anxiety) or you won’t be able to do anything. That is NOT the same as pretending the fear is not there; you have to acknowledge your enemy in order to defeat it. You also have to learn where the enemy is coming from. Sometimes, the anxiety can be a relic of some bad experiences in your past. This was my case. I spent a large chunk of my childhood with literally no friends, and people essentially kept me at a distance. College and medical school gave me friends and I thought I was set, but then summer came and I was stuck in LA alone and the anxiety came back. My mom told me to reach out to people and the first time she told me that, I nearly had an emotional breakdown because I was so scared that people would reject me! I had to make myself a positive affirmation that basically said that I am not in middle school anymore and that people will like me, and I had to put that on my wall and affirm that to myself all the time. Only then was I able to start reaching out.

2.     Figure out what kind of people you want to meet, and then go where those people go. Meeting random people is great and all, but if you want to meet friends, the type of people that you would want to be around, you should go to the places you expect those people to be at. If you want to meet skaters, go to the skate park. If you want to meet dancers, take a dance class. If you want to meet Christians, go to church. For those who aren’t set on one “type” of person, religious (and probably humanist) organizations, park districts, and YMCAs are places that have diverse activities for diverse ages and stages of people, so those are great places to start. The Internet (Yelp and Meetup come to mind) can also help you find special interest groups where you can meet people. 

a.     A great way of meeting people is doing community service. Community service is the type of hard work that brings people together in solidarity, and many friendships can be made with volunteers as well as with the people you serve. (Also, people who are serving their communities are probably more likely to be generally nice and good people, especially if they’re volunteers.) A major thing that I did was to volunteer at my church’s youth camp, Encounter. With about 50-100 other volunteers, I helped run a three-day summercamp for 350 teenagers. Along the way, I made quite a few new friends, and got a couple of dope pictures.

3.     Go to where the people you want to meet are, and go there regularly. The reason why it’s so easy to make friends in school is because in school, you see the same people every day, so there’s room to have conversations and develop friendships. As an adult, you have to make that regularity a thing for yourself. The first couple of times are the most awkward, and that’s where most people quit. The people you meet the first week you go may not be there the next week, and you might feel left alone as a result. Don’t give up! Keep going there and introducing yourself to people. In time, you’ll meet other “regulars”, and there’s where the friendship starts!

4.     Do go to the places where the people you want to meet are, but also don’t forget that there may be new friends right in front of you that you haven’t met yet or given a chance. Sometimes, we can be such perfectionists that if a person doesn’t look like a best friend immediately we write them off. Your roommate who you get along with but never really talk to, the custodian you pass every day, the kid who sits next to you in class but isn’t in your “friend group”—all of these are potential friends. Strike up some conversations with them and see how that goes.  

5.     So you’ve met another person, and you like him or her. You vibe well and have good conversations. Good! Get their phone number or email and (if applicable) friend them on social media. How do you ask for their number? After a couple good conversations (and preferably when you’re about to leave), ask them, “hey, can we exchange numbers/emails/social media?” It’s likely that the person will give you at least one of the three, especially if they like you. Numbers, emails and social media enable you to keep up the friendship even if you don’t regularly see the person. They are key if you want to extend the friendship beyond just your weekly church meeting or yoga class. However…

6.     Don’t just get the person’s contact and then never contact them. Text them and start a conversation! A good way to start a conversation over text (without getting a one word response) is, “Hey, how are you? How’s your week going?” (They will then hopefully describe their week, and you can go from there.) You can also send the person an encouraging quote or a funny meme, or even a picture of cute kittens—anything that will brighten their day. On social media, don’t just scroll through their posts. Leave a nice comment on their Instagram post or Snapchat story, and give them the chance to reply to you. In time, you can also set up a real face-to-face meeting as well.

Here's a picture of some cute kittens. Send this to your new friend; they won't be able to resist!

These are just a few of the many tips that could be given. Experts have written plenty about this topic: there’s even a famous book called How To Win Friends and Influence People. I am not one of those experts, but I have been able to apply these tips this summer and see results. I hope this helps somebody.  

Controversial Bible Verses #2: On Women in Leadership

Disclaimer: I am not a seminarian, and I possess nothing approaching a degree in biblical interpretation. I am just a laywoman with a degree in economics who loves God and his Word. Also, I come from a Pentecostal/Charismatic background.

We pick up where I left off in the second half of 1 Timothy 2, a series of verses that at first seems designed to not let us women be great:

11 A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[b] she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women[c] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

I hardly consider myself a feminist, and even I want to get up and picket at the last three verses. Women will be saved through childbearing? Are you kidding me!?

These verses are far harder to interpret than the ones about modesty that I spoke of in my last post. Clothes are one thing; gender roles are quite another. On the one hand, as Christians we are supposed to live by God's Word at all times, and this is part of God's Word. On the other hand, these verses not only go against the currents of the modern age, they go against examples we see in our own Christian circles. Do we repudiate teachers and preachers such as Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, and Christine Caine simply because they are women who (likely) teach men? Even if they preach as biblically as the men do, do we call them heretical simply because they are women? Were they not called by God, but instead hallucinating? What do we do?

We look for context, that's what we do.

The Bible is God's Word. As 2 Timothy 3:16 says, everything within it is inspired and should be used for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in godly living. But it is also a book and a collection of letters--letters that were not originally divided into chapters and verses. The chapters and verses were added later so that people wouldn't have to sift through 1,400 pages of material backwards and forwards whenever they wanted to find a specific point. Therefore, whenever we find a verse in the Bible, it is entirely reasonable to look at the context and look for other verses that talk about the same theme as the verse we've cited.

The most famous cross-reference for these verses here is 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, which says just about the exact same thing:

As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

The two verses don't contradict each other in any way; therefore, it appears that the debate is settled. But, if we look just three chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians 11, we find a contradiction:

 4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, 5 but every wife[c] who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head...

Here, Paul seems to allow women in the church to both pray and prophesy. Both of those, especially prophecy, require speaking. If a woman is supposed to be completely silent in church, then why is she allowed to prophesy? Why, then, are there people such as Philip's four unmarried prophet daughters in the Bible (Acts 21:9)? The most simple answer is that praying and prophesying are different from just speaking. The Greek word for "speak" in 1 Corinthians 14:34 is laleo. One of the meanings of laleo is "to use words in order to declare one's mind and disclose one's thoughts" (Strong's Lexicon). Imagine for a second that you are in church, and the person preaching is speaking straight fire. (If you happen to not be a churchgoer and are reading this, imagine yourself to be at a really cool TED talk.) You're sitting there, listening and gleaning from this person, when someone decides that it is the right time to stand up in the middle of the service and interrupt the speaker to declare their mind and expose their thoughts. Even if their thoughts are somewhat relevant, they are still expressing them at a very improper time. The people there do not need to hear the interrupter's opinion, and they probably don't want to hear that person at any time since they were super rude. Now say that multiple people do this multiple times, at the same time. Before you know it, you don't know what anyone is saying anymore.

Apparently this was the situation with the church in Corinth, the recipients of the two letters to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, in particular, sounds like an incriminating letter from your dad who has just found out all of your dirty secrets. The Corinthian church had plenty of potential, and they were especially talented as far as spiritual gifts. They prophesied and spoke in tongues more than any church that Paul writes to. However, they had let the spiritual gifts become the centerpiece instead of the more important Christian values such as love, faith and hope. And they were very out of order. Much of the letter, including chapters 11 and 14, is Paul telling them how to do church. Communion is not a time to get drunk! Don't just yell out in tongues without any interpretation! No, you CAN'T have five people prophesy at the same time! Stop tolerating incest! (I kid you not. Read the book!) Much of the book of 1 Corinthians carries the tone of a person who is trying to establish order. In an orderly church setting, it is good for women (and men, honestly) to learn in quietness, as Paul puts it, and then discuss their questions in a more open setting, like at home or in a small group. Indeed, the word for "quietness" in 1 Timothy 2:11 is hesychia, which describes a person who does their own work and "does not meddle with the affairs of others". The silence demanded, then, is not a complete silence, but one that keeps everything within reasonable order.

This silence is apparently allowed to be broken when praying or prophesying, and I hardly need a lexicon to make a suggestion as to why. Prophecy is when someone gets a message from God by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Regardless of whether the someone is male or female, he or she is inspired by God with a message for the congregation, and should be allowed to speak out. Praying, similarly, is communicating with God. In a congregational setting, when the prayer is not just one person's opinion but that of the entire congregation, it makes no sense that only men should be allowed to pray to God. The only mediator for God, male or female, is Jesus Christ. Anyone can pray to him if he or she pleases.

Fast forward a couple thousand years to our cultural context, where women are just as educated as men are and the head coverings mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11 mean far less than they used to. In an orderly church setting, where people do not interrupt each other in order to express their opinions and one person talks at a time, does it not make sense that a woman who is under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit should be allowed to say what the Holy Spirit tells her to say? Some may disagree with me, but I think it makes perfect sense.

There are many women in the New Testament who are important enough to mention. Priscilla was one half of a great teaching team along with her husband Aquila. The end of Romans mentions a woman named Junia as being "outstanding among the apostles", and another lady, Phoebe, is mentioned as a deacon (Greek: "diakonos"). In fact, Romans 16 mentions plenty of women: Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis are just four women who have "worked very hard in the Lord", as Paul says. The second of John's letters is written to a "chosen lady" and her children, and at the end of that letter, he says that the lady's sister and her children greet her. It is entirely possible that these two unnamed women served as pastors of churches.

From the time Jesus resurrected from the dead and appointed a woman, Mary Magdalene, to be the first witness of his resurrection, there has always been a very significant and powerful role for women in the Gospel story, and this is only likely to continue throughout time.

Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (NIV), via BibleGateway.
Greek words are taken from Strong's Lexicon via the Blue Letter Bible, at blueletterbible.org.