Ignoring Your Spidey Senses

Yup! I finally did it, boys and girls. I stupidly allowed myself to get sucked into the vortex of one of those pointless debates. You know the ones I’m talking about. The one you jump into innocently enough because it sounds interesting and voice your thoughts on the matter.

You think to yourself, we’re all grown ups here. Healthy discussion and debate can be a good thing. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to influence someone into looking at something from a different perspective. Maybe they’ll even cause me to see things a bit differently. I mean, isn’t that what we all strive for when we get into those deeper discussions?

And then….BAM!!!! Instead of the debate you imagined you’d have, you find the opposite has happened. You realize when that one person disagrees with you that there’s no changing anyone’s mind. In fact, you feel the judgments and closed-mindedness rolling off the response and think to yourself….”I should probably back away”. But you don’t.

Argh! So rarely do I not listen to my inner voice! But the initial post belonged to a long time friend, so I shrugged my instincts away. I assumed there would be no personal attacks and name calling. That we’d stick to the issue brought up. My mistake. Should have known better. Oddly enough, my first foray into this particular post was to ask for clarification. By the time I finally backed away, this stranger who had never met me in my life had decided that I’m someone who enjoys labeling and passing judgment on people.

Yup, should’ve listened to my gut. Instead, I found myself annoyed…at me…for putting myself in a position like this. As most of you know, I refuse to publically discuss my political feelings for two reasons… One, it’s not really anyone’s business but mine. Two, lately politics has brought out the absolute worst in people and it’s made me sad to see the mud slinging and bullying that’s gone on from both sides.

Since the discussion of givers/takers was loosely based on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged I should have considered that similar rules that I use around politics should apply. Unfortunately for me, my brain took a vacation in that moment. I mean, seriously. How likely would it be that nastiness would ensue over the idea that there are makers and takers in this world. Foolish, foolish me.

What about you guys? Have you ever found yourself in the middle of an unwinnable discussion that you regretted involving yourself in? What was your discussion about?