Saturday, January 20, 2018

The Social Media Storm

Over the past few weeks, social media has exploded with people upset at what someone said on twitter or what someone said that someone else supposedly said in some closed door meeting somewhere. Social media and 24 hour news channels have taken what was once a somewhat disconnected world and made it a small town.

I grew up in a small town and quickly tired of small town gossip, because it was hardly ever accurate and caused a great deal of unnecessary drama. It was quite reminiscent of the game we played in kindergarten where you whispered something in someone's ear, and you couldn't repeat it. They turned and whispered what they thought they heard you say into the next person's ear until it went all the way around the room. In the end the first person would stand up and say, "I said Sally has red shoes." The last person would stand up and say, "I heard - Jimmy is in love with Mary Lou." Everyone would laugh and shake their heads. I don't think we caught what the teacher was trying to teach us. The point was, if you listened and repeated the story you thought you heard, you would miss the message entirely. And perhaps, you might want to go to the source and verify the story before passing it on, but that wouldn't be any fun right?

Several years ago Pop worked construction and a c-clamp broke holding a cable on a huge piece of equipment a crane was lifting. The broken pieces of c-clamp hit Pop across the bridge of his nose breaking his nose and bruising his face so badly his eyes were swollen shut. His crew brought him home late on a Thursday night. He couldn't see a thing from the swelling and his face was black and blue. We lead him around the house by his hand and helped him get a shower and to bed. The next day, I knew he was going to need some help, so I skipped school and played personal assistant. I completed expense reports and placed his hand where he needed to sign, wrote his weekly report which he dictated, and generally did anything that he couldn't. He needed to go to the bank and deposit his paycheck, so I drove him to the bank and guided him to the teller line. One of the Vice Presidents of the bank was walking through the lobby, saw his swollen face and quickly came over to see him.

"Dick, what happened to your face?", the banker asked.

"My wife,my firewood, my business", Pop replied with a straight face.

The banker scurried off to his office.

Pop turned to me a quietly said, "I bet that stirs up the local gossip hot line."

When we drove up to the house, my Mom came running out the door and to the pickup where we were getting out.

"What did you say at the bank?", she screamed.

We both began laughing hysterically at how fast the rumor had circled town and had already gotten back to Mom.

Well 50 years later, social media and 24 hour news channels eager to have breaking news to share has turned the world into a small town eager to pass the garbled message someone thought they hard. My question is this:

"What good does it do to worry about what someone said on Twitter. Why worry about things you can't do anything about?"

We're not going to force a president or a congress member to resign, because we are appalled by their comments posted on social media or in the news. And we're not going to change a foreign leader's itch for a nuclear missile button.  So, why don't we utilize our energy and efforts for something we can change like the lives of those around us who are hurting, hungry, or homeless? We can't change the world, but we can change things in our corner of the world. Why don't we try to spread a little love and grace to those around us and hope that it will multiply?

Let's quit worrying with what someone said on social media and start worrying with what we say and do with those around us.