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DAY 75


I'm doing good today, but I've felt recently I've been running dry on inspiration for my blog. It's this balance of being personal with you but I don't want to detail all my day because that would probably be quite boring. I've been doing a lot of internet related work recently anyway, so there's not much interest on that front.

What I do want to talk about today is critics and why they are dangerous. I think if you have an educated opinion you should share it, but I think people need to pay attention to the context they are responding to. My best friend wrote this powerful message on Facebook regarding Feminism and some guy just commented saying Feminism isn't about equality.

I did mention if you have an educated opinion say it, emphasis on the educated. Regardless of my personal views on Feminism (this is not the right blog to write about it), I found the fact that he counter-acted with such a negative comment completely illogical. She was not trying to invoke a debate merely showing her support for equality, so for someone to throw their unnecessary opinion where it was not needed was entirely a show of bad manners.

Before you share a potentially harmful opinion think of these things:

1. What is the tone of my message?
The tone of your message or response should never be negative, that's not to say you can't deliver on what is a negative issue - it's meaning that your tone itself in how you say it should not be harmful to others. You are allowed to disagree by all means but you can't fall to using coercion or acrimonious name calling.

2. What is the context I am responding to?
If someone is writing something motivational, positive or generally inspiring and you want to counteract with your negativity, it's probably not the best time to do so. You are entitled to your opinion, but I don't believe this is the time or place for you to be responding in this mannerism. Maybe a private message would suffice, or just go by the old rule of - 'If you have nothing nice to say...'

3. What is the substance of my message?
If your substance is ill written, uneducated or under thought - should you be sharing? Beyonce doesn't release her music when it's half written, no matter how excited she is to see the response. Ensure that what you are saying is viable and that is productive to contribute. Another thing, it would be wild and ridiculous to have a mendacious message. That's not a very worthy contribution to anything.

4. What is the intent of my message?
What do you hope to achieve by leaving your opinion? I've came across ample people who are fractious and want to invoke an argument, and others who are set on the obfuscation of the argument just to mix things around. Is your opinion productive? Will you benefit from being correct, are you stating to educate or stimulate intellectual debate? If you just want to start a fight, there is no point in responding because you're only making yourself look silly!

If you power through these questions, your response to someone or your opinion is almost definitely going to be calculated. If you are going to do something, do it right and make sure it is appropriate. I am a huge fan of people sharing their opinion, it just a shame we are so bombarded with illogical or hateful responses. I always set myself out to mollify these situations which is not how I should be spending my time, luckily enough stupidity on the internet is very much ephemeral.

I fight so much for this world to only have positive contributions, but I find a lack of education is potentially the biggest reason for negativity. There are so many hypocritical people out there, people who lie or people who prod at others just to get a reaction. For these people - just don't bite back. I had this massive case of someone taunting me online almost every day then I realised that I was miles more intelligent than them and from my response, clearly more of a moral person. There are always going to be people who blindly throw their two cents around like it's 20 dollars - to them, ignore them and please don't react. You are better than that!