Acrimoniously Yours

There’s nastiness on the tips of everyone’s tongues. Our language is more blatantly bitter, decidedly divisive, and our mouths runneth over with hate. The one thing hailed as separating us from animals, our speech, has devolved to its lowest form because its intent is to hate, not communicate. This allows our behavior to bypass thought and reason and tap directly into emotions such as rage and anger. Nothing good ever, in the history of mankind, comes from these places. The world is slowly caving inward under the constrictive World Wide Web devoid of facts, tolerance, accountability, compassion, and truth. The Golden Rule is tarnished by people who don’t know how they want to be treated because they are so busy feeding their rage by hurting someone else.  Remember as children when we were taught to “Stop and think how you would feel if someone did that to you” and it taught us empathy and self-control? I once had an employee who screamed at everyone all the time. Although it had been tolerated for years by prior management, when I came on board I could not allow this type of toxic language. When I asked the employee why they insisted on speaking in a hostile manner to customers and team members, they looked at me with complete bewilderment. Their answer: “That’s the way I talk to everyone, even at home!” Are you losing your faith in humanity because you are surrounded by people who interpret “Do Tell” as “Do Spew”?  How can you exist as a peaceful, positive person in a world filled with rage? I have a couple of tips that I personally use in a valiant attempt to never let the bastards wear me down.

1. Stop watching the news (local and global) on TV.
2. Do not read blog posts/social media comments pertaining to local or international news.
3. Do read books on critical thinking and/or communication. Thinking and speaking are two skills that are learned just like everything else and are honed with usage.
4. Recognize that standards do not vacillate depending upon their application. If you begin talking to someone who advocates the same thing they are ranting about, cease communication.
5. Present your facts from a point of humility, not of hostility, i.e., “it ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it.”
6. Realize most people fixated on justice actually want revenge. Recognize the difference.
7. Violence, yelling, ranting, beheading, looting, threatening, and mud-slinging never moved anyone over to see things your way.
8. Just because someone is offended, doesn’t mean they are right.
9. Quit tokin’ the hashtag pipe. Don’t try to stir things up with a tic-tac-toe sign. If you feel compelled to action, find something positive within your sphere that you can do to make a real difference in making the situation better.
10. My new chant: Stop Venting! Start Relenting!

Thank you to those who diligently work to tame their own tongue and enhance their abilities to listen, reason, think, and act in a way that brings about a solution, not an exacerbation.