Celebrating average over extraordinary

Bad to good draws a lot of support and encouragement and inspires people, but good to great draws less support and encouragement and can even draw criticism and jealousy.  We love to celebrate when someone has made a change in their life that brings them out of a bad place. But when someone that is doing good decides that they would like to take their life to a level of greatness, very few celebrate; often people like to criticize and come up with every reason why they shouldn't be or are not really great. We are definitely happy to see someone overcome an addiction, or watch someone do something that they once couldn't. but to see a person that is already making good choices go from good to great gets a much different reaction.

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We see this every day on social media. When someone unhealthy makes progress to reclaim their health the likes and more importantly the encouraging comments are rightfully plenty. When someone is already healthy, gains 10 pounds of muscle and benches his/her new max weight the likes are down quite a bit and the comments are even less.
Maybe it's easy to celebrate when someone does something good, but not so easy when they do something better than us? Or maybe we think they don't need encouragement because they are already encouraged by how well they are doing, but on the other hand, those that struggle may not continue to do well if we don't over celebrate their wins?
 I admit that I'm sensitive to this very situation because of my upbringing. When I was growing up, I was the middle kid that was pretty average (good). I basically listen to my parents and teachers stayed out of trouble most the time and respected the rules that I was under. While I had two sisters that did not follow rules and always pushed the limits. Because of this, they seem to get all the attention of people of authority. Now I realize that a lot of time it was bad attention, but as soon as they made a good decision they received more attention and this was the "over the top" I'm proud of you for making such a great decision type of attention all the while I've been making those decisions daily. When I made what I believed to be a great accomplishment the praise was much lower if any. It was as if what I did was expected.
 Now I realize that my feelings weren't always right on and still aren't today. but I still believe that we do people an injustice by overlooking a great accomplishment while at the same time going out of our way to tell those that have turned things around how awesome and inspiring they are, which we should. But let's not forget the sacrifice and dedication of those the do extraordinary things. Even if we need to push back the jealousy to do it. 

The Like button

Facebook has really evolved over the years, and one of those things is the like button. Something that I have observed quite a bit, over the years working with teenagers is, holding back a like because they're mad at their friend. Really? But as time has gone by I realize it's pretty universal. Yes, unfortunately, it seems adults are leading the way. I know sounds absolutely ridiculous that social media has caused us to regress to the point of; "I will show you I'm mad by not liking your stuff" instead of having a relationship and going to our friend and discussing the issue. When a friend offends us, most of the time they are not aware (that is until we decide that we will not like or comment on their stuff to show them they can't get away with that). And the best way to work it out is to let them know so they can react based on the knowledge that they have hurt us, whether they apologize or not, either way, we both know where things stand.
Unfortunately, I have participated in this childish way of dealing with conflict and hurt too many times, but I'm grateful for the conviction of the Holy Spirit that has caused me to rethink my tendency to hold back my likes based on feelings that can be so fickle. I know I also use to justify it by telling myself I just don't like that, but we know otherwise don't we? I also know it's simple to justify holding back alike because we feel as if they were the ones being a lousy friend, and maybe they were or are, but if we think for one minute, that we are being anything more than lousy in our friendship to them we are dead wrong. Ok, I can go on forever about how wrong and immature it is for us to use Facebook as a tool to show our anger over something we feel is more than justified. (even know we are and would be wrong) But I would like to end by saying; Friendships should always be valued and valued enough to listen to the good advice of Paul in his writing to the church in Ephesus, where he says to "always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other's faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit, binding yourselves together with peace" As adults, I hope we can lead the way in showing our children the importance of relationships and how to reconcile and preserve our friends so they can build and have healthy friendships throughout their lives.