This is Tiki. He is my friend Danielle’s hairless cat. Tiki and his best friend Elmo are the stars of “Kitten A Go Go” – Danielle’s helplessly hilarious blog. She was kind enough to share a photo of Tiki with me so I could write a post. I think it fits beautifully with the topic weighing on my heart.
Enough with the judging!
The logic and sheer lack of a compassionate filter is very sad to me. “This group believes in A. I really don’t like A and A is completely wrong. Therefore, this group is wrong and they are terrible people.”
I wish I was exaggerating.
Why do people feel the freedom to be bigger jerks online? It is almost as though the evil thoughts we all think (but some choose to squash before they have a chance to become actions) have free reign online.
Which is pretty ironic, if you think about it. The internet, social media, the one place that has a delete key, is the one place people fail to use it most. You can type something out on Facebook,read itand then delete it before hitting publish. So much easier than saying something then deleting it.
So why don’t people control themselves? Where is the compassion? The empathy? Aren’t we all struggling with our own darkness? You don’t have to be a Christian to follow the golden rule and you don’t have to be a hairless cat to know what it feels like to be judged without prior understanding.
Just like Tiki and Elmo, I am sure everyone has felt – at least once – like the wrong assumption was made about them.
I will be the first to admit that I do struggle with this. I see a mom struggle with an issue and the answer to me is “well, DUH! Do it MY way and it is easy!” But mix in that compassion, discover more to the story, and just a dash of “their life is perfectly fine even if they do it their way” and the world is just a better place.
Judging totally bares no fruit, and yet I know we find ourselves doing it..I think it’s a defensive mechanism…just defending what we do when we feel we are being confronted. (However, I’ve decided I will judge a woman pushing a stroller with a baby and smoking or smoking in a car. There is no excuse!)