A lot of times in my life I’ve been the brunt of people being down right mean to me, because they have simply judged me incorrectly. They made an assumption about me, and then they acted upon it in a hurtful manner. I’m getting pretty darn tired of it.
Why do people feel the need to be so mean? I know…it makes them feel better, bigger, right, smarter, powerful….all those things. But when they go to bed at night, do they really feel good about themselves? Really? I find it hard to believe.
When I’m mean, I lie in bed wishing I hadn’t been and replaying my words or actions over and over again in my head!
Today I had someone really slam me. She made some assumptions based on something I wrote in an email, despite the fact that I also tried to clarify my statement or explain my point of view. She slammed me to thousands of people in her newsletter. Not very nice.Â
Now, we had differing points of view, it’s true, although I didn’t really feel like she heard mine. She really doesn’t even know me. But if she really felt the need to tell the world how wrong my point of view was (compared to hers — and, of course, right or wrong here only constitutes a judgement), she could have just stated it. She didn’t have to make a huge deal out if it and rant and rave and make me look so so bad and herself look so so good.
But did she make herself look good? Not everyone thinks so.
And then, in response to what she wrote, someone felt the need to go look me up and send me a nasty email. What’s up with that? Did this person not have anything better to do with her time? Does she not have a life? I wanted to respond, “Did that make you feel better? Was it supposed to make me feel bad? It only made me feel sorry for you that you have to write nasty and mean emails to make yourself feel better about yourself.”
Of course, I’ve gotten other comments from other people she sent to another blog of mine…some nasty and mean. I didn’t choose to publish those. Some might think I should have. But why? To put more meanness and negativity out into the world? No thanks. I posted one that allowed me to clarify something and one that supported my position. I figured that put some positive energy out instead.
This makes me think about the current presidential campaign. You know why I hate politics? Its a mean business. It’s nasty. They say mean things about each other, most of which aren’t even based in truth. Yes, they both want to win, but they forget they are both fighting for the same cause.
In my case, I was fighting for the same cause as this other person, but she was too busy being right and mean to see that.
What would the world be like if we just stopped being mean to each other? Ponder that…it’s much more worth thinking about than any mean article in a newsletter or a nasty email, that’s for sure.
