Are You Standing Up?

It’s been a few days since I had a chance to sit down and write. Life has been busier than I would like. Ideas for posts crossed my mind in those busy moments.  But, then I lost them before I had a chance to jot down a note. Today, though, I want to write about standing for a cause or for a belief.

From the time I was a child, I stood up for what I believed was right. I wasn’t bullied into backing down. When you weigh your soul against another person’s thoughts, your soul should always win. You have to live with your soul, not the person who disagrees with you. 

As I’ve grown older I’ve seen “yes men” and brown-nosers, people who would do anything for recognition or to get a leg up in an organization. In my heart, they seem like empty people. There is no substance to someone who isn’t standing for anything but can be bought or sold for money, fame, or attention.

These days, everyone has a cause, but few fight for it respectfully. Instead of intelligent debates and friendly discussions, people have turned to more forceful ways to demand others fall into line with what they want everyone to think.

I see a lot of angry posts on social media. There are two sides to every issue. Both sides are insisting they are taking the moral high ground and are thus following the correct and only path. But both can’t be right. Instead of intelligent discussion, threads turn into hate matches, name-calling, and complete disrespect.

It all hurts my heart. It should hurt all humans. Perhaps as an empath, I feel it more than most, but it should hurt everyone to see and feel this animosity toward others of our own kind. Throwing hate back at hate only turns the darkness blacker.

The problem is that both sides are fighting for their cause and they feel like they are fighting to the death. And the truth is that maybe they are. They are fighting to the death of human respect and kindness.  Both are standing up fighting, but maybe they should be sitting down talking.

Why haven’t we yet learned that we can’t change the minds of others with our words? We must show with our actions what is right and wrong. People learn more by example than by words.

In my little town is a family of racing celebrities. Johnny Sauter was in my brother’s class in grade school. Today, Johnny’s family announced he was not going to be racing because he found out the sponsor stood for something he completely did not believe in. That’s what it means to stand up for something with your actions.

That’s a huge life decision. There will be many people calling him an idiot for his choice. As for me, I stand in awe and am proud of the strength of his beliefs. It shows him as a man of his word, a man who can’t be bought for a few silver dollars or fame and attention.

On a similar yet different note, I’ve been busy with a cause of my own. Just as social media has been taken over with hatred, it’s also been overrun with scammers and spam. I have a new group Facebook Sleuths that is working to identify, expose and shut down these scammers and spammers, as well as teach others how to recognize them.

It’s sad how few people are willing to take action when they see these posts. Even if they recognize them, they don’t bother to alert the administrators or moderators to remove them. Good honest people end up getting fleeced because they were too trusting of very dishonest people.

You can’t back down because you are afraid of backlash. There’s always going to be a naysayer. Someone will always be there to tell you why you should not do the thing you know you should. Don’t listen.

Whatever the cause may be, if you feel it strongly enough then you know what you need to do. Life isn’t meant to be spent sitting on the couch watching TV or playing on our phones. We are all here for a particular purpose.

For a while, I wasn’t sure what my purpose was. But, within the last year or so I feel that I have learned more and more about what I am meant to do with my time here on this earth. I will lose people. That’s OK. I’ve lost plenty of people and I’ve learned that those who go were never meant to be here for the ending.

But I know I will be standing up for my truths and my beliefs. Just as I did when I was younger. I am not meant to change the whole world, but I am meant to change MY world. And there is a difference.