Be a Current Changer

If you spend any time at all on social media, I have no doubt that you regularly see opinion-spouting – i.e., people feeling entitled to publicly spew what they think and believe, usually absent evidence to support their claims and accompanied by ugly, thoughtless dehumanization of those who think differently. Our culture has – for well over a decade now – been inundated with the phenomenon.

Of course, sharing one’s views isn’t a bad thing. In fact, feeling free to speak one’s mind has been ingrained in the American psyche since the Founders penned the First Amendment. But with any right comes responsibility – in this case to handle the “weapon” of words properly – and acting irresponsibly carries dire consequences. Tragically, our society’s new knee-jerk habit of reflexively spouting off is anything but responsible. And it’s hurting us, individually and collectively, in many ways.

As with any other behavior, the remedy comes down to a personal choice to change – an individual’s conscious commitment to stop spouting off and begin, instead, to speak responsibly, sharing logical, evidenced-based ideas in a mature, respectful manner. It matters not what “everyone else” is doing. The direction of a river is changed little by little over time as rocks are placed – one by one – in the current’s path. If we want the tenor of our cultural discourse to change – and who doesn’t long for today’s ugliness to cease? – we can’t wait for “everyone else.” Each of us must, instead, decide to take personal responsibility and commit to planting current-altering pebbles, rocks, and boulders.

If that thought irks you – “Why should I have to watch my words when [name your personal nemesis] never does?” – purpose to look forward for motivation. Without a commitment to actively redirect ourselves, human behavior always degenerates over time (see Romans 1); in fact, that truth mirrors the natural law of entropy which God has built into the creation as a whole. This means that the social environment our kids will face as they grow up and then become adults will – without a change in current – be even worse than it is today. Can you imagine?

I hope you can. And I pray the thought of it chills you to the bone and then motivates you to be among those who aim to change the current. If you want your kids to live in and contribute to civil society when they grow up, it’s imperative that they see and hear you doing the same now.

CK

Photo Credit: FotoFloridian