Raise Your Words

"In my opinion..." "I think..."

Both of these are popular phrases on social media today, especially when talking about issues present in our society. Recently, it seems that things are becoming more and more controversial. People are speaking their minds about issues that bother them - which is fantastic! However, a lot of people lose credibility with their opinions, sometimes with what directly follows those "I think"s, and a lot more with how they respond to other people's opinions.

One of my biggest pet peeves probably has to be when someone makes a decision on how they view something without really researching it and forming a factual, thought out opinion. All over my twitter feed I see posts from my peers about issues going on without any research, or possibly even worse, one source and no others. If I've learned anything in the past few years, it's that if you have a solid opinion, people will respect you more and you may even be able to change people's minds.

Seeing all of the fights on Facebook makes me think of an activity I learned this past semester of college. It was presented to me a couple of different times, with maybe an alteration here or there to fit the situation, but the premise went like this; We would be split into either pairs, or depending on the number a group of three, and then a (usually) controversial statement or question was brought to our attention. Usually, we were paired with someone that did not have the same view point as our own. Instead of arguing about our points, we were both then given a controlled amount of time to inform the other person on what we thought. If you were the one not speaking at the time, you only had one goal; listen. In one activity I did like this, right after one person gave their opinion on the issue, the other person who was listening was to repeat what information they were just given to clarify that they understood the other person's viewpoint. Only then could said person go on to share their own view point, and the first person did the same as before; listened and then repeated. After all this happened, then the two could discuss, not argue, about their views and the differences.

The whole point of this activity was to get us to listen to one another. The main problem I see in today's age, be it in a classroom or a courtroom, is that each side is worried too much about arguing their point of view instead of learning what it is that the other side thinks. When this happens, often people get too caught up in the heat of the moment, make weaker arguments, and more than likely offend each other.

From my personal experience, learning to listen helped me greatly. I was able to make friends and have intelligent conversations about opposing view points without getting upset or angry, all because we sat down and listened to each other and instead of focusing on winning, focused on learning. This changed my mind on certain issues, and also helped me get my viewpoint across to other people as well. Sometimes we would still disagree, but we left the conversation having more knowledge and understanding of what it really is that the other person believes.

In one of the instances I was given this activity, I was paired with a friend who had a different view on same-sex marriage than I do. Both of us had facts behind our opinions, and despite our different opinions, we surprisingly found an abundance of similarities in what we thought and how we formed our opinions. Because we were both listening to each other, we were able to really understand each other, and this opened us up to even more conversation. This is something I wish more people would do, because when you get mad and argue, especially on social media, all you do is push people away from other view points and close yourself off from bettering yourself, and bettering society.

So, next time that you really want to get an opinion across when you see or hear something you don't agree with, just listen, or in the case of social media, read into it. Don't just read it and respond. Actually look into the issue, find factual sources (not just one source either. News sites/stations are probably some of the most biased sources you can get). And most of all, stay calm, because you change people's minds with love, not hate.

"Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder." - Rumi