Are you changing the culture or is the culture changing you?
To say 2020 has been one for the record books would be an understatement. Not only has COVID rocked our world, now we can add rioting and name-calling candidates to the fray.
In the midst of all of this craziness do you feel like you are being pulled in all sorts of directions? You’re either a BLM or Antifa supporter or a racist. A liberal or a conservative. A mask wearer or not. Pro-life or pro-choice. Ugh.
A few months ago I realized that I was changing and morphing into the talking heads I see in the media. I was becoming critical, cynical, a know-it-all, and a whole bunch of other ugly things that I’m embarrassed about. I was joining in with the negative people and the bullies around me and I didn’t like it one bit.
I decided enough was enough. I turned off the TV news, ended my subscription for my local newspaper, stopped listening to talk radio and decided to stop putting in my two cents worth on issues. Admittedly, I slip up every once in a while, but stepping away from the madness has helped.
Thermostat or Thermometer?
A thermostat controls the heat or cold. In a thermometer, the mercury moves up and down when the temp gets hot or cold. Which are you?
- Are you positively changing the culture? (thermostat) OR Are you letting the culture negatively change you? (thermometer)
- Are you affecting your surroundings? (thermostat) OR Are your surroundings affecting you? (thermometer)
- Are you using intelligent thinking and standing up for what you believe? (thermostat) OR Are you compromising and trying to please everyone? (thermometer)
- Are you thinking before you speak, text, post, or tweet? (thermostat) OR Are you “virtue signaling”– sharing your point of view on social media in order to gain praise and recognition? (thermometer)
- Are you “taking the offense” and just being you? (thermostat) OR Are you “on the defense” and apologizing for things you didn’t even think, say, or do? (thermometer)
- Are you listening to differing views and ideologies? – This doesn’t mean you agree (thermostat) OR Are you being hateful and looking upon others with opposing views as your enemy? (thermometer)
Hold Your Ground
Don’t believe everything you hear, watch, or read! No longer does the media give us unbiased reporting. They now purposely cause dissension and strife to increase ratings. Bottom line.
You’re not a parrot! Stop repeating what you hear! You’ve been given a brain. Use it. Get curious. Research. Question. Weigh the facts. Uncover lies. Look at all sides. Ponder. Think for yourself. Push back with character.
Do all of these and remain kind.
Silence the Name Calling
Stop the name-calling. Please, just stop.
Racist. Socialist. Clown. Idiot. Trumper. Liar. Sleepy Joe. Leftist. Homophobe. Anarchist.
Don’t be a bully. Leave the insults and name-calling for the playground or for Pee-Wee Herman (I Know You Are, But What Am I scene). Stop tweeting them. Stop texting them. And stop saying them.
Stop the Insanity
Friend, the fact that you and I are alive and on planet earth means we’ve been given the opportunity to be thermostats.
This country is a great one and there’s more than the horror and insanity you see in the headlines. Yes, things are pretty darn so much messy right now, but there’s so much more out there than hatred, riots, and angry people in Washington. There are good people in our country. Let’s you and I decide to be one of them.
Let’s detach ourselves from the insanity and choose to raise the temperature of the culture around us with love, humility, respect, generosity, forgiveness, cooperation, compassion, gratitude, justice, reciprocity, harmony, peace, affection, contribution, acts of kindness, and empathy OR we can continue living in the midst of the madness and letting it control us.
The choice is ours. We can be thermometers that go up and down with the hot and cold around us. Or we can control the thermostat and adjust the temperature to what we want it to be.
Let’s be thermostats, not thermometers.
“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
