Imagine this scenario:
You’re happily going about your day when, all of a sudden, someone makes a mean comment, is rude, or is simply not nice to you. You don’t know why – you certainly haven’t done anything to offend that person, but he or she still felt the need to treat you as something less than a human being deserving of respect. And for what? You are left feeling hurt and confused, and you have no idea why that person decided to use you as his or her personal punching bag.
Something like this has probably happened to each and every one of us – I know that it has happened to me, and it really hurts. People should not be made to feel that they are somehow less. That they are dumb, or not as good as everyone else. This isn’t about bullying – it’s about being a decent human being and treating everyone you meet with kindness and respect, regardless of who they are and what they might have done.
When you insult or are rude to people, it can really hurt their feelings – especially if you’ve never even met the people you’re insulting. This is a huge problem on the Internet. On the Internet, people tend to think that they have free reign to insult and be downright mean to whomever they are talking to because they have never actually met them.
They feel that they are not accountable for their actions because they are never actually going to meet the people they have just been rude to or insulted.
But the people on the other end of the Internet are just as real as those who are sending the mean messages and comments. They receive the rude and hurtful messages, and they have no idea why the writer is sending those messages to them. They don’t understand how someone they have never even met can judge them with such harsh words.
Asa Mahan, the founder of Adrian College, writes that everyone has an innate, intrinsic worth that cannot be taken away. Everyone is worthy of our respect because everyone has his or her own intrinsic worth.
You may not be able to see it, but it’s there, and you need to respect that. It doesn’t matter who you are, or if you’re higher up on the social ladder than the person you’re being rude to or insulting.
You need to treat other people with the respect they deserve. Some of the nasty things you say on the Internet you wouldn’t even say to your dog, so why would you say them to a person?
Next time you’re getting ready to say something mean, please take a moment and ask yourself: ”Does this person really deserve what I am about to say? Is what I am about to say nice? Would I want someone to say this to me?” If your answer to even one of these questions is “No,” then please don’t say what you were going to say.
Just be nice to people – you don’t know what they might be going through or how your words will affect them, especially through a medium as impersonal as the Internet. Just be careful, thoughtful and kind with your words. You never know who will read or hear them, and once they’re said, they can never be taken back.
The world would be a much better place if we could all just be kind to one another.
