Social Media, Opinons, And The Presidential Election

Never mind that I have had an epic fail in the daily blog post challenge, it seems I have lost my public writing voice this past week. The combination of this past weeks events and still struggling a bit with my new job has left me mentally drained. All I can do is journal my personal thoughts. Words that I will not share with anyone.

As people took to social media to be very vocal in their opinions, I have tried to stay away from it, unfortunately I have not been able to avoid it all. Instead the words that have filled my head have not been uplifting or optimistic so I choose to keep them to myself or write them down in my journal.

It seems at times that it is way too easy for people to speak their mind without realizing that words can hurt. We try not to take things personally, but we do. Especially when those words come from people who are close to us.

It used to be before social media that hot topics such as religion and politics were best avoided unless the group could talk reasonably about their opinion and state facts to back them up.  After all we are all different and all relationships are based on understanding, individuality, and compromise. Some cultures are built on the art of debate, but it usually does not get personal and you can have a healthy debate over difference of opinion without personal attacks.

Unfortunately in our social media driven society some people feel free to type things about a general group of people that they would never say face to face. Sometimes those mean spirited words may not be directed at an individual, but there may be a family member/close friend on the other end that has an opposing stance may just feel that way.

I come from the school of “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” seems there are a whole lot of people who don’t follow this rule. It’s okay to make your voice known in private with trusted individules, but to put it out there for the sole purpose of hurting another human being is beyond me.

I have struggled with utter disbelief, anger, and a general scratching my head and muttering to myself “what just happened?” feeling this past week, but I will move on. We all will. I dealt with it in the best way I knew how. I made a donation to a cause I care deeply about and I wrote in my journal to sort my feelings out.

I have some friends who are on the opposite side. While I don’t understand where they are coming from, I respected those that kept generalized attacks off of social media.

Of course there were also many attacks on both sides. I blame the whole atmosphere of the election for this. What is left is a country divided. The one thing that above all concerns me is, how can we ever rise above and work together in compromise to get things done for the greater good when there is so much viciousness in the country?

So I’m hoping by writing this post I can get the weight off my shoulders. Perhaps like a cleansing breath this post will enable me to move on and find my words again.