How to Cheat yourself out of Personal Growth
You know what makes me sad?
Those posters that get shared on Facebook that essentially say, “ Hey! If you don’t agree with X then delete me because I don’t want anything to do with you and I don’t want to engage in a conversation about X!” or “ Y group of people/religion/sex/ect. is “insert negative stereotype/assumption.”
Those things really really bother me.
Why?
Because as far as I can tell it means that person who I care about, is not willing to see any other side to a situation and they aren’t willing to even consider that they might- god forbid- be even the tiniest bit wrong or that there might be another right way besides their own.
Let’s just pretend we’ve found something that we disagree about…and it’s on Facebook, here or anywhere else.
How do I want you to handle it?
I want you to start a conversation about it!
That doesn’t mean that I’m giving you license to get all high and holier-than-thou, or tell me that I’m terrible, bad and wrong What it means is that, like civil adults with fully intact (mostly anyway, I can’t expect more from you than I’m capable of) social skills you should try to engage in an intelligent conversation about the issue.
An intelligent conversation involves:
Facts
Research
Personal experience
Philosophy/ belief systems
Patience
Open mindedness
Kindness
Listening
Restraint
And
Drum roll please….
People with differing opinions!
I truly believe that with almost anything there are as many ways to do something right (or wrong, for that matter) as there are ways of thinking.
It would be a pretty ugly world if there was only one way that anything worked. What if you were in a situation were that one way wasn’t possible?
Yikes.
I know there have been times I was guilty of having a closed mind on subjects, we all are from time to time. I try to remember that someone else’s opinion or beliefs shouldn’t threaten me, and if they do its no reflection of them but of my own issues.
So lets all try to engage in those hard conversations. Yeah, there might be some failures and hurt feelings. It’s not always fun or easy to have those conversations but it is so important in order for all of us to keep learning and growing as people.
What strategies do you use to engage in those tricky conversations?
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