#yesIamthatpathetic

Something monumental happened in my world today.

No, nobody died. I didn't fall in love and pick a day for a wedding in the spring. No money fell in my lap. I didn't get 100% on a music theory test.

What did happen?

I used a hashtag on Twitter.

I'm probably the only one shocked by this. Allow me to provide some background information, then maybe you too will be, if not shocked, at least appreciative of the enormity of this occasion.

In many circumstances, I have an inner drive to be different simply for difference's sake. No other motivation is required. Everyone's drinking out of a blue cup? I'll go out of my way to find a red one. And in that moment, my feelings will even go so far as to almost despise all blue cups. They're not good enough for me, because they're not different. If everyone were drinking out of red cups, then those would be the object of my disapproval, and blue ones would suddenly be the most aesthetically appealing, the only ones worthy to hold my beverage.

As you can probably guess, I don't readily take to trends. Everybody's doing it? Well, that's all the more reason for me to run the other way.

Thus we come to hashtags. On Twitter, everybody and their brother (which is my preferred exaggerated way to say a lot of people) started using hashtags. I inwardly swore I wouldn't. Even when people started coming up with really clever ones that made me laugh out loud, and I started to find myself absentmindedly forming hashtag gems in my brain. I fought it. I would mentally reprimand myself for even thinking them.

At this point, I'm sure you can see what I seem to have such a hard time comprehending. This is all ridiculous. And it has proud roots. There is a context in which to be different. There's even biblical exhortation to be different. But the biblical context is never that of being different for the sake of being different. It's more of a call to not be afraid to be different when the situation warrants it. Romans 12:2, for example: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will." Nowhere does that imply, be different for the heck of it. It's, don't let yourself fall into being like the world: be like God. That's the kind of difference that matters.

But here I am holding on to some inconsequential trifle, and feeling proud about myself and my ability to fight the tide. When I'm sure no one even notices or cares. Oy.

So today, I finally got over myself (just the slightest bit, I still have a long way to go) and when I felt inclined to use a hashtag, I did. What was it? #nowreading. Yep. That was it. Something incredibly simple, but something which took a rather lot of deliberation prior to posting.

And have you picked up on the great irony in all of this? This whole pitiful situation revolves around Twitter. What can be more conformist and trendy than that?

Ah, to be human.