In this world of 24/7 news, television, internet, Twitter, Facebook, and smart phones it is pretty easy to get caught up in all of the crazy things going on around us.
Today I was on Twitter providing my two cents on the many different topics of the day, mostly politics. At some point, I realized I was being pretty negative, even mean in some cases. This struck me because I’m actually a very positive guy.
It’s easy to get riled up when listening to people who have the exact opposite view of the world than you. Reading some of these posts I will more often than not silently say to myself, “How can he/she actually think this way?” In fairness to me, there are people online that are brutal and will say things that are unacceptable, mean and yeah, crude. I don’t think this helps matters at all and it certainly doesn’t help their credibility. In my worst moments when I see one of these posts I will reply by slamming the person with a verbal two-by-four. The point they were attempting to make is quickly lost and instead, the focus is all about how rude or crude they are. When you start by calling me a Nazi just because I want legal immigration, the 2X4 is coming out and I’ve lost all interest in the person. I guess I’m not smart enough to just ignore and move on.
It’s fine to be passionate about your beliefs and I think it’s healthy for all of us to see different points of view. If you want to be convincing you really have a better chance by being thoughtful and open minded. When I have found myself in a verbal battle of opinions with a stranger and I’ve said something like “you make a good point” or “Um, I never thought about that”, 99.9% of the time I have an instant fan and suddenly the debate becomes a more honest sharing of ideas. We all like to be heard and we really like to be right. You’d be surprised what you learn when you really listen instead of talking or worse, yelling. This is true whether in an online chat session or with a spouse, child, co-worker or the guy on the street corner.
Now that I’ve calmed down and taken a little time for some reflection, I’m jumping back into the vast online jungle to share my great wealth of knowledge. Based on that, I should be done in a few minutes.
Maybe you and I will cross paths, I hope so.