I talk with a lot of people and the consensus is that there seems to be a lot of negativity these days, I’m not sure if it was always there or with the internet, Facebook, Twitter etc. available that it has taken the humanization out of things. When someone makes a rude or hurtful comment via a keyboard, they aren’t able to see the human reaction of the person that it was directed to. They can’t see the hurt in their eyes, the tears or the pain, and a lot of thought doesn’t seem to go into how their words can be interpreted. They also hide behind the ‘freedom of speech’ line when someone pulls them up about what they may have written, yes, we have freedom of speech in this country but that doesn’t mean you can go around hurting people verbally, freedom of speech is about being able to give your opinion WITHOUT making it a personal attack. For instance, you can write this “I personally don’t believe in Clairvoyants”, that is freedom of speech, you’re offering an opinion with it being directed towards someone. However, what people tend to do is this “you’re a fraud / rip people off / you’ll go to hell / you just make stuff up ….. “ I’m sure you get the picture, those comments are a personal attack.

Words are very powerful, they can lift people up or they can tear people down. Think about what you write, think of the ways it could be interpreted, ask yourself ‘would I say this to their face?’ is it an opinion or is it a personal attack towards someone that doesn’t agree with you? Be kind everyone, it’s OK for people not to agree with you or you not to agree with them, but don’t make it a personal attack and if someone doesn’t agree with you, don’t take it personally either.