If you can’t say anything nice…..

then don’t say nothing at all

I am taking a break from my bible study prep for my Wednesday class, my coffee maker has a flashing red light on it indicating that I need to run a cleaning cycle, the refrigerator needs to get a good cleaning out, the dog needs to go to the vet to get his nails trimmed, I need to take the car to the shop for an oil change and tire rotation and the bathrooms need to be cleaned.

So I have decided that rather than attending to all those wonderfully simulating situations I have opted to make a latte and work on a blog post. Never let it be said that I can not place all things in there proper perspective when really pushed to the edge.

I had a situation happen this morning, hence the title of my post!

If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say nothing at all, well this morning I made a error in judgment. Not a long lasting error and one that was easily corrected but still if did get me to thinking about the true nature of people. It really was a very small and basically unimportant thing that spurred all my pondering but it was really very interesting.

I follow one of my favorite authors on Facebook. Over the last few day they have been asking everyone for suggestions on who they thought would be their dream actors to play the main characters of one of this authors more popular series. Well it sounded harmless enough. I tossed out there who I thought should be the lead for the male character and I was shocked at how unfavorable most of the comments were. So much so that given my necessity to shy away from conflict I went back over to the site and deleted my comment.

After I retreated into the safety of my ability to delete I began to think about how easy it was for total strangers to belittle my opinion. I also was pondering on how easy it was for me to fall back on the behavior that I have worked so hard to overcome, i.e shying away from conflict. The rebellious side of my nature wanted to defend my choice and to try and persuade all the naysayer that they were wrong. However I opted to just remove myself from the negativity and to realize that at times the world is really very superficial. I mean seriously people let’s get a clue and recognize that I do have a right to an opinion and being mean and ill natured come easy when you are dealing with the anonymity of the random people you see on Facebook.

The thing I found so interesting was how quickly this all happened. Within in a matter of a few minutes I had almost a dozen comments and they were all in the negative. I was surprised at my emotional response, an ill at ease feeling at being disliked, the notion that there were so many negative comments. It was my opinion after all, everyone is entitle to one. However I was a bit shocked with how fast it happen and how freely these strangers were in sharing exactly what they thought of my choice. It was very clear that they all thought I had lost my mind.

Well it did not take me long to recognize the error of my ways. I dealt with this foray into popular culture quickly. I immediately went over and deleted my submission.

Life it to short and I have more important things to do.

But what I really thought was interesting was at the parallels I saw when I examine the behaviors of human beings and the expectation and standard of living a life based on Christ. I would never think of belittling someone else's opinion, yet the world gives everyone an open microphone and tells you that anything goes.

We all have the right to free speech but sometimes having the right to speak freely does not mean that it is the right thing to do.

Well live and learn, you can bet that it will be a very long time before I toss my opinion out there on anymore public forums.

I am just going to stay right here with all y’all!

Blessings

R

Ever been dissed online???

Thank You Jesus for the delete button!