Have you ever heard the saying Silence is golden? Sometimes that is the best response to life.
My job is to fix and make things work properly. It is difficult for me to not want to fix things. So when there is a problem I’m ready to solve it. The thing is, that many problems don’t want to be solved.
I have realized that many things in life don’t require nor need us to react to them. For example, we all know what trolls are right? They are people who say stupid things and want us to react to them. Long ago I ignored them on message boards, and I thought that I had ignored them in life as well.
Why am I talking about this? I discovered that I had been letting myself be trolled by someone who says stupid things. I don’t need to mention any names, but anytime we spend time and energy on people who are not thoughtful we waste our lives.
It’s easy, isn’t it? We hear something stupid in the media and we get upset or surprised that someone could be so ignorant. We feel superior and judge the other person as less than us, with our greater knowledge or experience. What does this gain us exactly?
I think that we lose more than we gain when we judge others. Yes, it is easy to want to judge others and fall short of the personal standard we set for ourselves. However, everyone has their own standards and no one can possibly meet all the standards that others set for them.
Let’s take a simple example. No president is liked by everyone. So when people don’t like a president it isn’t a surprise. No person can be liked by everyone. Is Obama or any president a bad person when they aren’t liked by others? Of course not. However, it is fair to ask if their proposed policies will help or hurt people. Are thoughtful and will they improve things?
We can ask for thoughtful and kind behavior from others in a way that is respectful. Calling someone stupid doesn’t help anyone, even if it is the truth.