Profile Picture Pride

When you go to another country on a mission trip, you inevitably put a picture of you and one of the kids you met as your profile picture. Come on now people, you've done it, haven't you? I have!

Part of it is probably the fact that you liked the kid. He or she was cute, and maybe spoke a different language in the most adorable little kid voice. You couldn't help but cuddle them and fall in love.

Another part of it is because it's trendy. It's hip. It's cool to put your picture up with an orphan from another country. I mean, look at me! I went to Haiti and cuddled this adorable child. Go look at the rest of my pictures. I am so cool, right?

Am I just cynical, or am I right? A little bit right?

I'm right in my own circumstance. I mean, I want you to look at this picture of me and Roberto and think "That's adorable. How cool. I wonder what her other pictures are like."

That's icky isn't it?

Not the picture, because Roberto reminds me of this kid. I mean, what isn't adorable about that?

But it's icky because it's another example of how we seek approval and applause through our actions. We live in a works-based world. You are successful if you make more money, go to college, have the dream job, own your own home, have the pool in the back and the Escalade out front.

Or even if your successful world doesn't hold a pool or an Escalade (two things I could do without, seeing as how I hate swimming and Escalades), success comes through the envy and approval of others.

And I don't know anyone who would say cuddling cute orphans isn't good or worthy of applause.

Just another way my pride jumped out at me today. It makes me feel slimy and no good.