Lines In The Sand

I’m only 53 but I’ve saw a few things in my life. I saw the dust gather on the little black Atari box to make way for the big donkey Kong arcade game at the local dairy Queen.

I watched the excitement of of the neighborhood kids gathered around having asteroid contests. I watched the birth of Xbox, the internet and cell phones.

I watched the cars get smaller while the pricetag got bigger.

I saw houses get bigger while families got smaller. I watched parents work more & more hours while kids did more activities.

I watched the same 24 hours on the clock yet I saw time dwindling.

I saw exhausted frustrated parents at the end of the with nothing left to give to the most important people in their life. Work harder to have nicer things only to have less time to enjoy it.

In spite of this diminished time I saw peoples energy going into things far away from them even when they were home.

The distraction seemed legit.

It seemed easier to have an opinion on other people’s lives than what might be happening behind the scenes of theirs.

It became the norm even brazen to boast about the ridiculousness of something you only heard 3 minutes of information about. It seemed obvious that you would have done things differently had you been over there …. Plus you had expert opinions to guide you.

By the end of the hour, you, the expert & the newscaster had it all cut & dried. Your solution to the dilemma was of course the “right and only way to do the thing best for all involved..jeeshhhh it’s a no brainer, can’t you see that?”

Onto the next thing…

Your world in 60 seconds became a well known household slogan.

After all this WAS your world .. out there.. right?🌍🌏🌎

You HAD to care.. less SOMEone might do SOMEthing that might affect YOU if you didn’t insert your expert opinion..

Everyone knows that….

Don’t they?

Rapid technology has brought us millions of daily information to sort through. It became harder to stay neutral and let it pass. The Social kings have now admitted how they hooked us…

Hook line & sinker 🎣with bursts of dopamine day after day. 🧨We couldn’t wait until the next hit of ego- filled satisfaction. Family time, instead, became hours of internet searching, arguing, reading, playing silly games and surveys But WITH STRANGERS.

Many a study has been done on these effects… But here we are now- 2020- with a major major dilemma.

Before – we could have walked away & not had it affect us …. But NOW we can’t.

We are in too deep.

WE MUST CHOOSE A SIDE…

We must prove we are right & justified in our opinion. We look for evidence to back our claims. And we find it!!!

Social media has shown us how they served it up on a platter to us.

And now they’re taking it away. Suddenly it’s not ok to be us….. Suddenly we MuST think like our friends or our family or our co- worker’s or we are the stupid idiot who has a profile picture that CLEARLY shows what an inbecile we are.

Suddenly we are served limited information according to some obscure fact checker in some random basement ..

Yes I’ve lived half a century but I’ve never seen the intolerance and sheer derogatory venom that comes out of people’s keyboards.

And no.

It’s NOT ANYONE’S fault.

Yes the media can reward us with more of what we want, and we can feel like we’re part of some elite club, but at the end of the day, it’s US, OURSELVES & I that are responsible for Our words & actions.

AT the end of the day what matters?

CNN isn’t gonna be on your death bed, zuckerberg won’t send flowers. 💐

Jim Blow in Yimbucktwo isn’t going to suddenly apologies and say “hey man, you were right- sorry about giving you crap online”

Nope, at the end of the day, at the end of our life, WE are the ones who have to answer to & feel good about the energy and vibes we spread…

WE ARE responsible for the seeds of strength we plant or the fire & venom we spew.

What is your legacy gonna be?

How to Deal with Internet Criticism

As I’m trying my hand at writing with this blog site AND starting my first book, I really needed to strengthen my armor and battle my extra sensitive innerds to withstand future haters. So I was thrilled to read a fellow bloggers advice.

I came across THIS article on internet criticism.

In it they state to “Accept that someone else’s opinion is NOT your problem.”

Duh. I mean in theory it’s true. Why DO we care what Jim Bob from timbuck2 says?

Why does it seem like a direct hit to our gut. Is this all stemming from the era of ‘value everyone’s opinion–because everyone has a voice’ lessons in debate class?

The trouble with modern internet “debates” is they’re NOT debates. They’re arguments. So that in itself should show us that when someone criticizes US or our work, we should take it with a grain of salt- as my Mama used to say.

Speaking of my Mama; They also quote in the article, one of my favorite childhood comedians:

“Carol Burnett once said:
Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.”

Yup and you can never take them back thanks to screenshots and clouds.

Of course we’ve all saw the damage for ourselves. Arguments that quickly turn to name calling and making fun of someone’s profile picture as “verification” of “no wonder you’re an idiot”. Really? Are we in kindergarten?

All this negative energy and bad vibes doesn’t just harm our health, has a ripple effect too. When we get angry online do we immediately “let it go” & decompress or do we stew about it, take it out on our families, then get back on the thread and defend ourselves some more?

What wasted energy. I’ve always said that the person is judging you for your ONE SENTENCE out of 550 million sentences in your life. So then why so we give credence to their opinion??

It’s ludicrous on our part.

Yet we still get drawn in to the “debates”.

In years past, there were relatively few things debatable. I mean you could argue your theory on anything but EVERYTHING WASN’T POLITICIZED either.

As I stated in this THIS article a few weeks ago, every family, friend, and coworker seems to need to Draw a line in the sand and risk the unraveling of relationships with family and coworkers.

Wtf really matters?

Opinions don’t equal facts. No matter how you spin it because today’s facts can be twisted- says I. In another opinion article. ( Cause MY opinion MATTERS 🙂)

Anyway, you get the drift.

If we wasn’t somehow dependant on “followers” or job reviews to maintain our lifestyle, I suspect we could ƇƛƦЄ ԼЄƧƧ.

But meanwhile… We need a balance of “caring about people just not what they think”

Which leads me to another great article about what people think -written by someone with a great Opinion…🤷‍♂️

Please check out This advise too.

VERY timely needed. (Just my opinion- lol)

https://wp.me/p1KAF8-77h