One Rule That Would Change the Internet

Days like today, Facebook makes me queasy.

With the SCOTUS decision to make same sex marriage the law of the land, there was no way my news feed wasn't going to blow up with strong opinions on both sides.

And it's not just this issue. Pick any other big news day and the same thing will happen. It's not the strong opinions that bother me. (I have a few of my own.) It's the way we express them. We seem to have lost our collective ability to do anything other than preach to the choir. Conservative or Progressive, we all do it.

You may be partially right. You may even be all right. But what good does it do to take a tone that says, "Here, folks, is the plain, simple truth of the matter, and anyone who doesn't see it my way is an idiot / backward / hateful / ignorant"? Doing so may get you lots of likes, shares and pats on the back from people WHO ALREADY AGREE WITH YOU (hello Matt Walsh), but does it accomplish anything else? I can't think of much.

So here's what I propose: What if we spread a new rule of thumb for social media?

We're Not Having the Conversation We Think We're Having

Baltimore Gives Us a New Chance to Get It Right

I am a terrible blogger.

If you want to be a real, grown-up blogger, you have to have an opinion on every current event. Even if you don't have an opinion, you have to get one, and then you have to write a post about it. You have to give it a title that grabs people's attention and makes them click on the link. You get bonus points if you start your post by letting readers know that you're the only one on the whole wide Internet who understands what's really at stake in the issue. 

It makes me tired just thinking about it. 

So while my news feed was blowing up with Ferguson, Missouri, I wrote nothing. And while every other item was about the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, I wrote nothing. But I was thinking. 

And now, here we are again—watching, crying, wondering, and maybe fuming as Baltimore erupts in violence. This time, I need to get some of these thoughts out...

#blacklivesmatter

It was the hashtag that got me. 

Never Covered With Shame

I am now officially allowed to write what I think about Brené Brown's book Daring Greatly. A few weeks back, I broke one of my own sacred rules and commented on it when I hadn't fully read it yet. Don't you just hate it when people do that? Yeah, me too. 

But now I have read it. Cover to cover. Even the appendix about her research methodology. It is as good as I said it was. (Whew!) It connected the dots on so many puzzling, hard, painful relational experiences I've had. And it is soooooo hopeful.

I Have Just Discovered...

...Brené Brown.

And I like her.



Thanks to Ashley Boyer and Kelly Flanagan for being introductions number one and two to this sharp lady!