We often open our mouths and say things without thinking of the consequences. Every action has a reaction. Everything we do in life has a consequence. I know we normally hear that word and we think of it meaning something bad. However that is not the case. It simply means the result of an action. In some cases its simple.
Action: You tell a girl you like her hair
Consequence: She smiles and says thank you. She may move on or she may feel more confident about it for the rest of the day. /
You don’t know. Maybe she was having a bad day and your compliment made her feel better. That's the consequence of your action. It's a good thing. However, sometimes it’s different.
Action: You tease a girl about her clothing choice with your friends when she is around.
Consequence: She thinks back to her mom taking her shopping for new clothes so she could fit in. She feels bad. She feels like she wasted her time. She feels uncomfortable the rest of the day. She wants to be invisible.
I've been in that position. That girl has been me, and believe me when I say no one should have to feel like that. No one deserves to feel awful about themselves. No one deserves to wish to feel invisible so they can avoid stares and comments. It's a terrible feeling and what is even sadder is that so many people can relate. It needs to end.
You do not know what those comments or actions are doing to others. Even if you are familiar with the experience, which if you are, why are you doing it to someone else, you don’t know exactly how it is making that person feel. You don't know what is going on in their life. If something has happened to put someone in a fragile state and then you go about having your “fun” teasing them, you don't know what that's doing to them.
Put yourself in their shoes. Would you really want people to treat you the way you treat others? Would you be able to brush it off and ignore it if it was happening to you all of the time? You need to put yourself in their situation. And see how it would make you feel.
The digital age has made this so much worse. A lot of this now occurs in cyberspace. Just because you can't see your victim doesn't mean you aren't hurting a real person. It's actually a lot worse because it goes home with them and haunts them where they used to be safe from all of that.
Consider this. Even if someone teasing you, and trying to tear you down wouldn't bother you, consider what it might do to someone else. We as a society need to be helping each other and building each other up, not tearing each other down. Stop calling each other ugly, fat, stupid, useless etc. Instead we should be trying to help each other, make each other feel better about ourselves, and build each other up. So before you open your mouth to say something cruel, or start typing something nasty, think of the consequences of your actions. Take a minute, stop, and realize the damage you could be doing.
