We are all idiots. All of us.

Falling repeatedly into the media traps with misleading headlines, click bait articles, things that sound promising but never turn out to be what we expected…

It does not have to be this way.

Sure, social media and the interwebs are our lifeblood at this point – it is the easiest way to communicate with family and friends, to announce new additions to the family or post pictures of various celebrations.

It is also the easiest way to put a target on your back by making a simple comment that seems harmless (or rather quite intentional) at the time. You become a villain to others just because of having an opinion that APPEARS to contrast with theirs, and it draws lines in the sand where they should never exist (seriously, when did our wellbeing start to depend on people unfriending/unfollowing us?).

For example: you use the phrase “all lives matter” because you genuinely believe those words in the context that you take them to be in. However, to someone reading them who has seen persecution in a way that you could never relate, they cannot fathom that to be true when their life experience has shown that to be the opposite. Saying that you have amazing friends, even best friends, who happen to be a different skin color (as I am certainly guilty of in the past) is not your get-out-of-the-argument-free card when it comes to this discussion.  

Another example: you claim to be “pro-life” in the sense that you believe life should be sacred and valued from conception to natural death. However, to someone who has seen horrendous tragedy in their lives and may not have been raised in the same moral code as you – it is outrageous to them that you would tout yourself as “more righteous” than them just because making those major decisions in life has come a lot more naturally for you. Moreover, if you use that phrase and follow it up with a statement that attacks those trying to immigrate to a new country or those trying to fight their way out of extreme poverty… you, by not showing the mercy and forgiveness bestowed on you by the Creator, are a hypocrite.

One more example: you claim to be “anti-marijuana” while trying to vote for farmer’s rights and supporting tobacco lobbyists in each state, when little did you know that it is becoming the one crop that can save their small businesses in the states where it has been legalized. While actively stating your opinion on this “drug” that has now been proven to tackle some of the most complicated health issues our existence has seen, you try to seek sympathy from others when someone close to you loses their addition battle to a pharmaceutical that could very well have been avoided. There is a better way through the madness, and it starts by admitting (and feeling) fault one way or another.

Without empathy and compassion on both sides of each topic in a conversation, the opportunity for progress between each other is non-existent… and for some of you/us, it might require admitting that the lack of compassion has really been a one-way street for quite some time. Resorting to terms that the media shoves down our throats rather than using our OWN words to describe our OWN feelings gets us nowhere.

Be better. I promise I am trying to do the same.