Try Some Kindness
I’ve often said that this blog covers topics that are not political nor controversial, unless you hate potatoes or like telemarketers (see my previous blogs). I may be bumping up against the political with this one, but bear with me.
It seems like people are more ready to argue with each other than ever before. Everything is black and white – the grey has disappeared. What’s more is that the people on each side of any matter are so convinced they are the ones who are right and the ones on the opposite end are so wrong they are crazy. It hurts my heart. How did we get here?
When I was little, my family’s circle of friends didn’t always agree with each other. Heck, more times than not, conversations that started about the height of the corn devolved into a heated argument about fertilizer and irrigation practices. Come hay making time, though, the same neighbor who was shouted off the property over the great corn debate would come driving down the road with his baler and work shoulder-to-shoulder with my dad until sunset to get the hay in. The next day, my dad would head down the road to help that same neighbor get his hay made. I remember all the neighbors helping each other with the slaughter when it was time to butcher. Extra vegetables, baked goods, and baby clothes were freely given to neighbors in need and appreciated.
When my father suffered a stroke and couldn’t be left alone, a neighbor lady picked me up and took me to church with her three sons every Sunday for months. I still remember the taste of the Nibs we’d stop and buy at the corner grocery store on the way home. Her sons taught me to love those little black licorice bites.
Somewhere along the line, we started worrying more about ourselves than others. Circles of friends got smaller. We stopped getting to know our neighbors. We started tearing others down instead of building them up.
Social media is not wholly to blame, but maybe partially. Instead of giving others’ opinions some consideration or asking questions, some people seem hard-wired to argue. Debate is healthy in a thinking society. The venom with which disagreements are launched online have to be less than healthy. I’ve unfriended more than one person who was previously a close friend of mine because their every comment on my posts started becoming nothing but nasty, personal attacks. I didn’t need that kind of hatred directed at me, and it made me sad that a person I had previously respected and cared about had become this angry, judgmental, unkind being.
I welcome feedback and discussion. I try to listen, and promise not to attack your point of view. There is a Contact button at the top of my landing page on my website, RWAwrites.com. Feel free to contact me there. You can also find my Facebook author page by clicking on the little f at the bottom of any of the pages on my website, and engage with me there. But please try to be nice. 😊