As this whole “Deflate-Gate” frenzy continues, I can’t help but finally speak up about it – yet it’s not in the way that you’d think.
No, I’m not succumbing to the need to defend one side or the other, or to tell everyone what I think about it.
Over the last two weeks, I’ve seen friends and colleagues engage in battle after battle on social media, vehemently defending their opinion.
About football. I get it’s about integrity, sportsmanship, leadership, and all that. But it’s still about – football.
I came across an article today (link is below), and no matter which no matter what “side” you are on, it’s hard to argue with the perspective this drives home.
That realistic perspective in that article inspired me to write this post, because there’s a larger issue at stake here other than who deserves to play in the Superbowl.
I’ve seen people get fully caught up in the emotion of the topic (or any topic for that matter), yet when asked a basic fact question, they actually have no answer.
The entire reason I’m even bringing this up on a parenting site, is because I truly wish people though more critically about everything in their lives, the least of which is football.
But I get WHY that’s hard.
It’s got everything to do with the way our brains are wired. In simple terms, anything out of our comfort zone our brains signal to us as “threat.” And we have a physiological response to that “threat.” It’s hard wired into our brains and is not easy to shift. For the survival of the species, we are wired to reject any idea, concept or notion that threatens our status quo – our comfort zone, our safe place.
Because we’ve survived within this this status quo so far, why would we reject that now? According to our primal brain, that feels almost like certain death.
Yet is it possible TO shift.
And as parents, we MUST.
We need to at least recognize when this survival instinct kicks in, and ask ourselves if it’s still pertinent.
I wish more people asked good thoughtful questions about everything, rather than simply buying into mass consciousness, or accepting what they are being told about something at face value. This applies to everything we read, or news reports, or what someone in the public eye tells us.
Someone famous. Someone with more money. Someone in a position of authority. An elected official.
As conscious parents, we need to teach our children how to think for themselves – and not put “fitting in” above honoring themselves. Often children are the ones more tuned in to asking “Why?” than us adults are….as they’ve not got years of experience just accepting what is.
Thanks to the window of social media, I have gotten to peer inside the minds of people I have known for years, by what they post and how the respond to anyone who disagrees with them. I’ve posted about this phenomenon before, and it only keeps getting worse.
Because of this, I have kept quiet about things that I feel very strongly about – admittedly because I feel it’s futile to attempt to educate someone or share a perspective they may not have considered…..and it’s just not worth the time and energy.
And that makes me sad.
There are many topics I have studied, researched, educated myself about, and asked the hard questions. And I end up on the non-status quo side. I find that I keep quiet on all of them, on social media in particular, because I’m tired of people who merely take things at face value, who don’t take the time to do what’s necessary to investigate all sides.
Even people who are educated in general, I doubt they’ve taken the hundreds of hours I’ve personally spent looking into specific topics like I have, in an effort to understand. I did not do so with an intention to prove one point over another, but to understand it all so that I can draw my own conclusion.
No matter what side of a controversial topic you find yourself on, you can always find plenty of “support” or justification for your opinion. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about looking at both sides in detail….looking at unbiased info, asking some hard questions, and not just reading opinion pieces on both sides.
There’s a difference.
It takes getting down into the nitty gritty, and 98% of people won’t take the time to do that. And I get it. We’re busy, we’ve got jobs, kids, a household to run, and somewhere in there, we need time for self care. That leaves very little time to spend on educating oneself about controversial topics. Because let’s face it – it’s draining and there’s a lot more fun things we’d rather be doing. You’re not lazy or a bad person if you don’t do this – it’s just the way it is.
If you do the same research I’ve done, and come to a different conclusion, I respect that. I don’t claim to know everything nor am I the authority of what matters to you and your family.
Just don’t bash or insult me for having a different opinion. Even if you aren’t bashing me personally, you do so by your vehement posts not knowing I see them.
And if you think your children won’t in some way learn that from you, you’re dead wrong. You may think they are too young to see what you are posting, but in reality, it’s an energetic vibration they feel and interpret, no matter the words you say to them. They will incorporate that into their field, like it or not. And when it’s part of their field, it is universal law that it manifests in their experience. (See Law of Vibration).
I don’t respect people who think they know but haven’t actually taken the time, yet find it fun to post on social media that anyone who thinks differently than they do is an absolute idiot. Yet often, they are the ones who are the loudest opponents in social media.
And according to many of my friends, I am an absolute idiot.
I also apparently don’t care about people, am endangering others, and am selfish, ignorant and stupid. (yes, that’s what you, my friends, have said about me – not to my face, but said it nonetheless).
Because I have a different opinion.
Yet my outspoken friends don’t know that I know they think that, because I don’t speak up.
In fact, I guarantee they assume that I agree with them.
I’d love for parents to help shape a culture where people, especially our children, are lauded for asking questions, for not just going with the flow.
Sadly, we still live in a society where it’s socially acceptable and even applauded, to ridicule people for questioning the status quo or what’a culturally accepted as “fact.”
Yet time and time again, when basic questions are asked about facts, there is no answer.
Just more emotion.
It’s time that we begin to value inquisitiveness and curiosity, over cooperation and acceptance. And yes….trust.
I dared say it – trust.
We must trust people close to us, who love us and have a relationship with us. What we as a culture refer to as “trust” is actually in many cases an assumption of trustworthiness. We must not blindly “trust” anyone, or anything. That in no way means we need to live in fear, but we just have to be protective of who we allow into our trusted space.
This whole Deflate Gate thing has made me reflect about WHY I don’t speak up about things that I feel strongly about. Here I am a woman in her 40s who doesn’t really care too much about what other people think, yet I still censor myself.
It’s because I know there are certain topics that are polarizing….and I watch well meaning people post things online, and I think to myself…oh no…they have no idea what they are in for. And it shouldn’t be that way. I should be able to share things openly, and not fear bashing or ridicule.
But I do. Only because it takes time and energy to continue the dialogue. And no one likes to be bashed period. Not worth it.
There are some posts I’ve seen by people I adore and love as friends, that show me a different side to them. And sadly, I stay quiet. Even though perhaps I might help open even just one person’s eyes to something that they’ve not considered before, I don’t even bother.
Sometimes the most passionate people are the quiet ones.
Here’s the link to the article I was referring to.
Leave a Reply