Being Human 101

This is not going to be the uplifting nonsense you all are used to. There, I warned you. This is going to be more of a rant/observation than anything else. I am sure I am not alone in thinking that there is a lot about our current society that leaves little to be desired, social media chips away at our faith in the human race succeeding, and although there is still proof of good and wholesome people in this world, this is not one of those topics.

Forgive me for not starting off the most hopeful, but I just so happened to experience one of those ‘what is going on with people’ moments this last weekend. To provide a little back story, my daughter shows goats in 4H (and is becoming quite the little rockstar at it if I do say so myself) which is where our story starts. An individual I was introduced to there (which will remain nameless since I’m horrible at remembering names) who just happened to be a bit younger than myself, came off as a likable person who was easy to talk to. At one point in the morning while waiting for my daughter to show again, my father and I were talking about the issues I was having with getting my motorcycle up and running (Spoiler) when this individual happened to hear what we were talking about and jumped into the conversation. Unphased by this, I told this individual what was going on with the bike and what we thought could be wrong when we came to a disagreement. When my father disagreed with her assessment of the problem, she excused herself and didn’t speak to us the rest of the morning.

Now I will admit that I am no expert on the topic we were discussing, which is why I haven't figured it out yet, but I have a basic knowledge to work off of, and I was more willing to lean toward my dads opinion rather than someone I just met an hour earlier, but this individual didn’t even try to back up their claim and just bailed on the conversation. I’d like to take a moment to thank my parents for raising me to believe that it is possible to disagree with someone on any topic and still be civil towards them. I will give just about anybody the chance to prove themselves right compared to my views if they can do so in a respectful manner because lord knows I’m not the smartest man out there

But therein lies the problem. People today don’t know how to disagree with someone without persecuting them. If they don’t agree with me completely, then they are ignorant and must be judged for it. I will admit that I have been wrong plenty of times in my life, and I have grown as a person because of those times. Open discussion leads to advancements. I look back on that conversation now and wish this person would have argued their case, because as of right now I’m not much further diagnosing the issue than I was before, and they could have brought up something that would have sparked another line of thinking.

Moral of the story is that it is ok not to agree with someone else. It is ok to have a different way of thinking than other people or to have opposing opinions. Where would this world be if no one broke the mold and said ‘What if we try this instead?’ Stand up for what you believe and be prepared with knowledge to defend it, but don’t be so close minded to completely ignore others point of views. Life is hard enough on this tiny pebble speeding through the vastness of space the way it is, we shouldn’t make it any harder on ourselves. Let's learn to be better towards each other and lift ourselves up together.

And here you were believing I didn’t have anything uplifting to say, that’ll teach you to believe me from the get go. In closing, I would just like to point out that you will never agree with someone 100 percent. I know for sure there isn’t a single person I agree with 100 percent, yet there are a lot of people I have a great deal of respect for regardless. Be yourself and stand up for what you believe in, but don’t be afraid to be wrong, because you probably are.