I recently had a conversation with the My BIG Year Group about the “highlight reel” that seems to bombard us on Facebook. We all do it: I mean, who’s really going to post a photo of themselves when they’re puffy, hung over and depressed because their boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with them the night before? No way! I’d personally much rather post about good news, or an image from a trip I took.

So sure, on an individual level it feels like we’re all actively choosing to put our best foot forward when we select the content we’ll post online. But collectively, when we scroll through the Facebook feed, the result is that we see tidbit after tidbit of hugely successful and happy news.

I did a little research, and it turns out that we’re on to something.

It happens to all of us. As humans, we’re biologically wired to respond strongly and quickly to fear in the name of self-preservation (think tiger chasing you in the underbrush). Often, in 21st-century North America, the fears we’re confronted with aren’t anything even close to being life-threatening.

But we still respond as though they are.

Fear vs. Love

Two years ago I wrote a post about my own discovery that fear was influencing the choices I made while scrolling through my Facebook feed. I realized that, as much as I disliked seeing people I know and love defending the NRA (something unconscionable to me), my own fears provoked me to rant about them privately to my husband (I wrote about it HERE).

So here I was, feeling fearful of what the NRA supporters were trying to accomplish, and there they were, fearful of what non-supporters like me were trying to do. Everyone was completely afraid, and most of us still are!

I was amazed to discover just how much influence my fear had over something as seemingly mundane as my Facebook preferences.

Which begs the question: With so much fear-mongering going on during the election process this year (“ISIS is going to get us… big banks are trying to screw us…  politicians are trying to dupe us… Trump is a racist… Hillary is a liar… etc., etc.”), how do you choose to respond?

It’s pretty much guaranteed that anyone who decides to be an actor will at some point hear the words, “If you can do anything besides acting, do it!”

Sometimes those words come from an acting coach, a parent or even a complete stranger who thinks they know all about how an actor’s life operates.

The intention is to be helpful, of course. Anyone who says this to a young actor thinks they’re offering good advice that will help the other person steer clear of a lifetime of struggling to make ends meet. But usually (at least, in my experience), the phrase only serves to strengthen the artist’s resolve that, yes indeed, the only thing they can do in life is be an actor!

Well, you know what? I call bullshit on this whole thing.

If you follow me on Instagram you’ve likely noticed that I recently spent some time in Africa with my husband, Scott. I was so excited to visit our friends who are traveling the world, and this was a trip that both Scott and I were really looking forward to!

But, like most things in life, our travel plans didn’t go exactly as expected (gulp). Here’s how it all went down...