For the love of god, stop.

Look, I understand the impulse. You're casually scrolling through your Facebook feed, past your middle school classmates' faux-artsy selfies and status updates about your aunt's cat's recent surgery, when you see it. The dreaded Political Post. Maybe it's a link to a news article, or an obnoxious political cartoon, or simply an original screed containing a few too many exclamation points. Whatever form it may take, one thing is for certain: it's wrong. So you decide to helpfully inform the original poster that they are, in fact, wrong. Surely they'll come to see how objectively correct your viewpoint is if you just explain! What possible downside could that have?

The second you hit the post button, you have doomed yourself. And, worse, you have forced the rest of us to watch.

Buddy. Listen. You and I both know that no matter how faultless your reasoning may be, and no matter how witty and eloquent your phrasing, you are not going to change your Aunt Dolores's mind about gun rights. You just aren't. There are certain invariable constants in this universe. Such as: gravity, the laws of motion, and Aunt Dolores's opinions about gun rights. Trying to change this fact will only lead to frustration as your points are continually ignored, and fracture whatever relationship you have with the other party as the fact that you are debating over a medium that doesn't involve face-to-face interaction causes the fight to get nastier and nastier. These arguments are black holes of despair, sucking up more time and effort than you care to admit, and in the end, nothing's changed.

All this, and I haven't even mentioned the toll this can take on innocent bystanders, who, unwillingly, have front-row seats to this sorry display, and are forced to deal with the emotions that come with it. The frustration! The fury! The secondhand embarrassment! All we want to do is look at our younger sister's ex-boyfriend's prom pictures, but instead, we are forced to behold the bloody carcass of civil discourse, which has been unceremoniously dumped onto our Facebook feeds.

"But! But!" I hear you say. "They're just so wrong, and I'm so angry! What could I possibly do about it other than make a comment on a social media website and force all my friends to look at it? I literally have no other ideas!" Here's a thought: try channelling your anger into something positive! If your friend Pedro from underwater basket-weaving camp just made a Facebook post in support of the Law That Allows The Government To Murder Homeless Puppies, go volunteer at the Humane Society! Take it from me, spite-based volunteering is the best kind of volunteering. You get to be a good person and be incredibly petty at the same time! What's not to love?

Or maybe, for some reason, you can't do that. That's fair, not everyone is able to volunteer or otherwise become politically involved, for a lot of totally valid reasons. So here's another idea: ignore it! Look outside. Maybe it's warm and sunny, perfect weather to have a water-balloon fight or sit outside with a glass of lemonade. Go out there and explore the world around you! Or maybe it's rainy, the perfect weather to curl up in a blanket and take a look at that Pulitzer winner that's been sitting on your coffee table for the past eight and a half months. Or the new crime thriller from your favorite bestselling author. I won't judge. Or else take a look at your Netflix queue. I guarantee that there's at least three critically-acclaimed shows there that everyone's been recommending to you. Why not kick back and enjoy the golden age of television! Play Candy Crush. Pet a dog. Scream into a pillow for hours on end (this one is a personal favorite of mine). Just do not, I repeat, do not start or contribute to a political argument on Facebook. Do. Literally. Anything. Else. The world will be a better place if you do.