In this episode:

Do you remember when your world was contained to the people you saw at home and at work each day? Social media has opened an opportunity to have public forum discussions on a daily basis, and the result is sometimes that we say too much.

Inspired Life
There is a lot of heavy conversation around us these days. More than any time in my life I see division because we have the ability to discuss current events with hundreds of people every day.
Do you remember when your world was contained to the people you saw at home and at work each day? Social media has opened an opportunity to have public forum discussions on a daily basis. I’ve noted that even among people of similar faith, there can be vast differences in opinions about what is right or wrong.
The strong opinions from social media often seep into our face-to-face conversations. We bring up something we saw on a post or a story we saw on the news. Someone will presume we share their point of view. And with a simple statement, a potential argument pops up.
This is going to be a little bit of a soapbox episode, but it’s important to consider our own actions and what we convey through them.
We might dehumanize our comments on social media posts and just fire off a reply without thinking about there being a real person on the other end of the screen. I don’t think we always consider the feelings of the other person or even how our response could damage our relationship. I believe that too often this is happening in personal conversation too. We say the first thing that comes to mind. We argue and try to prove a point.
We want to be right. I’ve caught myself mistakenly believing that I can somehow change someone’s mind. We send news articles and persuasive pieces. We might mail books, and share links, all in a desperate effort to change someone else’s mind.
But I think we lose something when we do this. We lose our real connection.
The real challenge is to learn that we often don’t have to say anything at all. The quickest way to diffuse a conflict is to let it go. I think we can discover life, repurposed when we look for something other than pushing our opinion, but instead in building true caring relationships.

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Life, Repurposed
There are many places where our impulses are tested and these can affect our relationships with others. This is especially true in communication.

Text messages
Emails
Verbal comments that rile us up
Social media comments

If we shift our focus away from viewpoints and toward relationships, these are some action steps that could change the outcome:

Remind myself I don’t need to be right.
It isn’t likely I can change someone’s mind, so I can ask, “What is my motive here?”
I can ask, “What does it feel like to be in their shoes?”
Assume their intelligence. I acknowledge that this person is smart and has wei...