I'm a noisy gong.

If you know me, or know someone who can describe me well, you know that I'm an Extrovert. My letters are ESFP: Extroverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving. I'm The Performer. I like to be the center of attention. I don't intuit well, and the "what will happen if" part of my brain isn't always firing on all 4 cylinders.

I hate conflict, and I hate it even more if it's happening online. I really try to avoid it as much as possible. As I've mentioned before, a few months ago I was belittled on Facebook for my opinion of an article. (Ironically, what I was attacked for had NOTHING to do with the content of the article. The article was about Megan Fox...) The conflict grew to the point where I had to block the person and their family members from being able to see my comments/posts/etc.. It was "whatever" and I was over it quickly. But ever since then, I've been more aware of expressing my opinions and views in a public forum. 

This creates an inner conflict. 

By nature, I'm impulsive. My spiritual gift is encouragement. (Do I lose points for telling people that? Whatever). I like to talk, and like it when people listen. I've been reading more blogs and articles over the last year, and I want to talk about the newly formed opinions I have. And often times, I see posts on Facebook that relate to topics that I've learned through the writings I've read. So, it makes sense to talk about about it, right? 

Nah. Not always, no. 

Expressing my opinions, essentially daring conflict to come at me, and speaking up isn't always helpful or encouraging. Even when I'm not laughing in the face of a pending argument, saying something that is a general  truth, might be met with conflict. And I don't know how to handle that. Especially when I thought the person on the other end had similar beliefs than me. It's easy to debate someone you know disagrees with you, but when you're blindsided by someone's opposing thoughts, it can really tilt your axis. 

It's also easy to blame the other person's circumstances for the way that they reacted. And while that might be a good place to look, an even better place to look is yourself. Why did I make that comment? What was my intention? Was I being genuine, or just commenting for the sake of it? 

Friends, we can talk, drop wisdom, and quote Scripture and Jesus' teachings until we're blue in the face. But if we don't do it with pure hearts, the words are like lead balloons dropping to the bottom of the ocean. Unheard and unaccepted by the ones we are trying to talk with. 

My parting words of wisdom to myself, and everyone else, no matter what you believe or stand for, would be these: 

 "If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." -1 Corinthians 13:13

Let's not be noisy gongs. 

Let's speak the truth in love instead. 

Words of Wisdom Wednesday.

Happy Wednesday! Today, I have a guest post! The rebel who wrote this is still in search of a life. I encourage you to think about your own life while reading this. Who have you become? Where do you place your value and self-worth? -s. 

…we are pathetic.

2013’s 7th graders have wedding Pinterest boards. Depression and self-diagnosis has become mainstream. We have the ability to access any piece of information with a swipe of our finger across an oily LCD phone screen but we can’t retain any of that information. We rely on the advancement of technology instead of trying to remember anything. We buy things we don’t need. We criticise others for not wearing famous brands. We have become the number of Twitter followers we have. We are our Tumblrs. We are our biased, uninformed sociopolitical opinions that we are fed from one biased, nonfactual source. We ‘care’ about causes the minute we hear from them. We know the food we eat is genetically modified and terrible for our system. We know the soda we drink is packed with so much sugar yet we rely on it for ‘nutrition’. We care too little about the things we should care too much about and we care too much about the things that shouldn't matter. We become enraged at the simplest things like our “pick” not winning an Oscar or an Emmy. We keep unheard artists to ourselves so we can have the satisfaction of ‘knowing’ we were first to hear it. We can’t agree on the most absurdly simplest things. Some of us justify the abuse and hatred of others. We have become our filtered pictures of food because, somehow, we miss the “old days” of terrible, relentless photography. We have become our hatred of all that is mainstream. We have become the blame we toss around. The things we own have ended up owning us. 

You are not your tumblr. You are not your cup of Starbucks. You are not your North Face and UGGS. You are not your religion. You are not your wallet. You are not your taste in music. You are not cable package. You are not 140 characters. You are not your political party. You are not your haircut. You are not your sexual orientation. You are not your iPhone.

We used to be people. We used to speak, not type.

We used to live. 

                                             - No one. 

Original Post: We Are Pathetic