Life is just too short

I made the mistake of commenting on a Facebook post in a group I’m a part of. I had the crazy notion to say that food for kids in schools is a public good. Thankfully a complete stranger decided to write a manifesto to show me how wrong I was and how I was promoting authoritarianism and government tyranny. And here I thought I was just concerned with making sure kids weren’t hungry and when they aren’t hungry they actually learn better. Go figure.

I’ve heard the wild accusations being thrown around in politics lately – how Vice President Harris was supposedly a “DEI hire.” DEI hire is the latest version of supposed insults. I guess CRT and BLM are so last year. I can’t wait to see what other three letter combo will be cobbled together and hurled at someone.

The whole “DEI hire” thing is interesting in some regards. I often wonder if that would have been thrown around had Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina had been chosen by former President Trump as his running mate.

It seems as though the criticism gets thrown around every time a person of color is in some kind of leadership position. Which makes me wonder about the people who throw such insults around – I wonder which person of color is “good” enough on their own merits for these people to be able to bypass the “that’s a DEI hire” criticism? Is anyone good enough? And why do they feel so threatened by a person of color in a leadership position anyway?

I read an article about something good happening here in the local area. And then I went to the comments. I was curious as to how far down in the comments I would have to read before I found a complaint or someone twisting the obvious good news into something not so good. It didn’t take long.

It’s like people who have the uncanny ability to complain about a beautiful sunny day. They’ll say the rain is coming. They’ll complain that it’s too cold, too hot, too sunny, too this, too that. These are the people who have the ability to suck the joy out of any situation. It’s like they enjoy misery. Misery does love company after all. Miserable people love making others miserable with them.

I don’t need misery in my life. I’m a realist as well. Bad stuff is going to happen. I’ve seen some really terrible things. I’ve experienced some of them myself. And I don’t enjoy those things or wish them on anyone.

When I found the comment on the article about the good news, I stopped. I caught myself. I asked why I was looking for such nonsense. I didn’t have a good answer. I went back to the article, re-read it, and enjoyed the good news.

When I heard the empty criticisms in politics, I stopped trying to debate it. Most of the criticism that is lodged in politics is short-sighted, not thought out, and only interested in scoring some kind of cheap points. It will be tossed aside soon enough anyway for something else. Instead, I went back to look at the actual story and look for what was really going on and the long term effects and how those impact people, communities, and the nation. There’s plenty of good things going on that have a positive effect, in spite of the naysayers and people who insist on spouting their nonsense.

And when I started to read the stranger’s comments, I stopped. I knew where it was going. So I just stopped reading, and blocked the person. Nothing good was going to come from the interaction. I wasn’t able to go and delete my initial comment, but if I could have done that, I would have.

We have a choice in each moment – to get sucked into the nonsense, misery, and complaints, or to see possibilities, good news, and real challenges that require critical thinking. Actually it’s more than that simplistic choice. It’s a range. Sometimes we’ll get it right. Other times, we’ll get sucked in without realizing it. The beauty of it though is that we can stop at any time. We can change course. We can restart. We can stop engaging with people who have no interest in actual conversation, or even listening. We can choose to move forward.

Life is just too short for a fight in the comment section with a stranger. Life is too short to analyze non-sense criticism that is just going change tomorrow anyway. Life is too short to give the habitual complainers attention.