It's already June and I've been preoccupied with relatively unimportant things but I'm hoping to change some habits I have when I move which isn't too far away.
One of those habits is speaking my mind, Now It's only my opinion but by far the hardest thing anyone can do is holding their tongue and not speaking their mind.
I've been pretty good about it and learning to not saying anything but I still have a long way to go with that and it has a way of sneaking up on me from time to time.
The worst place I have trouble in is online, this is not a medium for arguing with anyone mainly due to what I call Verbal delay.
When you talk it is mainly a reactionary thing where you can talk back and forth with fluid motion with no guessing needed on intent of How the words are both presented and tone of voice.
When I'm in a one on one conversation I can respond to something with immediacy and expand on it as needed so there is no mistake with intent.
However the same cannot be done online due to the following reasons...
1. Short space.
There are two parts to this.
A.} Often times you only get so many words to convey your statement and often times you cannot fully explain your intent so you have to compact often resulting in people thinking you're not thorough enough or misinterpreting your message leading to people thrashing your opinion.
B.} In the case of where you do get plenty of room and can fully write your full thoughts out you are forced to shorten your thoughts into the best way possible due to the fact that no one wants to read long expounding essay's.
Often times instead of reading your full thoughts people skim the words and/or subconsciously skip a word that is vital in conveying the point.
For instance... If you write "Lindsy is not a whore." people skip over the word 'not' and the words turn into "Lindsy is a whore."
I don't know why this is but it does happen very strangely and I am confident that it is subconscious and not intentional.
2.There is a delayed reaction.
Because there isn't an auditory response of physically Hearing you often times get caught with having to wait for a response from the person or if it's an open forum of any number of people waiting to type their opinions.
It takes a while to type a response to these people and so a normal conversation that would not take long can go on forever getting nowhere in the least because another thing that happens is that people who haven't seen the whole conversation tend to repeat things that have already been talked about variably starting a lot over because no one wants to go through Days weeks, months if not years of chat logs depending on how long the topic was posted and how heated it got.
Not to mention pages upon pages of logs.
Inevitably posting anything online causes a never ending up hill battle that no one wins because no one gets their point across without a huge backlash from one side or the other ultimately becoming useless in all aspects.
So even in knowing this I still have the habit of speaking my mind which logically and literally is insane because I keep hoping for a different outcome other than a never ending battle which never happens.
I've been seriously trying to stop online debate knowing that it will never go anywhere and just let it go because if I don't stop it at the start It'll be very hard to stop myself from stopping.
I've gotten much better in the real world and holding my tongue and being better at lowering my level and even letting things go, now all I have to do is just keep reminding myself not to start in the first place.
I just have to let others be wrong and have me not say anything which is really hard for me to do, when someone says something incorrect I feel a very strong urge inside pushing me to correct others.
A big part of this has to do with the Asperger's in me and I'm not using it as an excuse by any means but more of the fact that it Helps me understand myself Better and have a better understanding of what I need to correct in my own life and how to go about doing that.
People often times don't understand why I am the way I am or why I'm loud, speak my mind so flat out boldly, see things in black and white and why I sometimes get so obsessed with things.
I think my obsession more times comes out in the form of wanting to correct people with misinformation and in doing so I won't let go most times until it's corrected.
Recently an old friend of mind posted something on His Facebook page to which I was not the only one to jump in and correct Him in His mis-beliefs on a subject.
For some reason a friend of His {Not mine} proceeded to suggest that the only mission in my life was to only prove my friend wrong as if I stayed nestled by His page waiting to strike and lash out like I had nothing better to do with my life.
They also said a few other things to me which I won't get into and so in defense to correct this misinformation I Private messaged them because I wouldn't want to get into anything on a public forum since it can get very crowded quickly.
I do this with everyone and anyone who talks to me because it's only proper to at least give defense to an attack.
In doing this my friend got upset simply because I messaged His friend whom I didn't know despite the fact that their friend openly attacked me and I was at least nice enough to private message that person rather than getting into it on a public forum.
Long story short they unfriended me which is their right to do so but they did not see my right to defend myself against a threat.
I do wonder, should I just let people carry on with false information and passing it on to others or do I take the risk of correcting that despite being right and backed and vindicated by others will turn into a never ending battle?
I don't have that kind of time to waste on ignorant people and yet the drive inside me doesn't want those people to keep being ignorant either.
It's a Paradox...
I think from not on I'll be trying my darnedest to stick to verbal correction and leave online ones out.
God holds us accountable to that if we do not at least try to correct misinformation and God will hold false teachers accountable for all those who they led astray with their misinformation.
I swear in my near 30 years of life this is my greatest challenge yet of personal growth and I'm sure there are more to come.
