Last week, someone apparently unhappy with things I’m selling on the internet posted a fake ad including my number. I was DELUGED with calls about some gun I was allegedly selling, but that I have never owned, as people were excited to pick it up. It took backpage an entire day to remove the fake ad, and I still receive messages today about it. This is pretty childish to prank someone like this. Unfortunately it happens all the time.
They will excuse it as a prank, as harmless fun. The trouble is that it’s not fun for anyone except the perpetrator. The people who contacted me were disappointed and upset that it was fake. I was annoyed to constantly be harassed by people despite posting that the ad was fake. Apparently nobody read that one. I worried that people with whom I actually WANTED to speak would not leave messages or think I was ignoring them, when really I had to screen calls for two days because I didn’t want to tell dozens of people that there was no such item for sale under this number.
Fun at another’s expense is really only fun if the other finds it so. We are taught, at least I was, to treat other people as we would have them treat us. I understand that this person is upset, but I don’t really know why. I don’t even know who it was. What I do know is that two wrongs do not make things right, and harming me because they perceived a slight just makes the entire internet blind. How would they feel if I did this to them? It wasted my time and energy, and it infuriated a lot of people. Rather than confront me directly, they took a childish route and came at me sideways. If they were men, they would come face me rather than attacking me through other means or other people.
Far too many people today are quick to take offense. When we say or do something, they take it personally, when that’s unlikely, particularly if we don’t know them. One thing I learned from the Sequoia was the necessity of growing a thick skin if you want to survive the scorching behavior of others. Rather than assume that it’s a slight, perhaps they should ask. Recently, a principal was fired for asking that children speak English on school grounds in Texas. How exactly do English teachers do their job if asking students to speak English is racist? How do they expect to succeed if they can’t speak English? Special pleaders do whatever they can to drive wedges between us. They balkanize us to make us suspicious, but not because they care about us as much as because they care about increasing THEIR power.
Many people insist that we are judged by whatever deity or belief system they practice according to how we treat other people. They then charicature people they don’t know, villainize people they hate, and lionize their friends and favorites. They see only virtue in those they love and only evil in those they hate. They look at others sometimes and see that the problem with another person is that this person is the way they are. I do not conform to that ideology. I agree with CS Lewis that if you take away all that is good in man you are not left with a bad man. You are left with nothing at all. Fortunately, this prank didn’t hurt me much. The worst part is that it didn’t help anyone at all. Nobody was helped. No justice was served. It was a lose-lose all around, all to slake a bruised ego. While teaching in graduate school, I bought a T-shirt from www.toothpastefordinner.com that reads, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate". Rather than be pranksters, let's move to solutions.
My best friend posted this image to the internet with which I agree.
It's time to look at fix rather than fault. If you don't like the way things work, change them. You don't attack the people who made the error, particular if they didn't do anything wrong or if you don't seek them first for a resolution. Imagine how much more we could accomplish if we switched our focus from fault to fix! If I have offended you, let me know. The more specifically the description of the problem the more fully the healing process and the solution I can offer to make things right.
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