A Whackadoodle Opinion
Nearly everything we do impacts others indirectly. I think we need to remember that.
“You seem glum today,” she observed from over her math book.
“Don’t change the subject,” I warned her. “You still keep messing up your Order of Operations.
“But I want to know why you’re so glum.”
“I’m glum because just before you arrived for our tutoring session, I has a Facebook direct message conversation with someone I admire, and whom I had somehow indirectly hurt because of a public comment I made questioning one of her posts. What you have misinterpreted as glum, is just me being thoughtful. It is me reminding myself to be more careful.”
“Your comment indirectly hurt her?”
“It certainly changed how she felt about me,” I nodded. “And it certainly changed how I feel about public Facebook comments.”
“How so?”
“It’s made me realize that Facebook is like a giant party where the whole world is invited. At an actual in-the-flesh party, I would never stand up in the middle of the room, and yell, ‘Hey everyone, can you see the problem in this guy’s thinking?’ No, I would never do that. But on Facebook it’s easy. You send a quick public comment at midnight that points out an inaccuracy, and you wake up the next morning to find that you have indirectly hurt someone.”
“Why do I think that this is really about Guidepost Fourteen: The Power of Indirect Effort?”
“Maybe because it is,” I said. “Nearly everything we do impacts others indirectly. I think we need to remember that.”
The Dalli Lama says we should always try to help, and where we can't help be very careful not to hurt. I try to live by his advice.