Going High(ish)

It’s been an interesting few days. My kids are finally over the flu (hooray!), Facebook was full of posts from my friends who participated in the women’s marches over the weekend, a new president was inaugurated, and I’ve had a few unkind things said both about and to me.

I submitted the link to my last post to an online forum in support of Donald Trump (r/thedonald, for those who Reddit). It was my small effort to show that collaboration and cooperation can be achieved even among people with differing political ideals. The response has been mixed.

On the one hand, the post has more upvotes than downvotes, so that’s cool. The comments that have been left for it, however, are breathtaking. To wit:

So here’s the thing about this. I could fire back and come up with all kinds of witty responses to these. I’d be within my rights to. I’m not going to, though, and here’s why:

I’m an author. To be more specific, I’m a published author. I promise you, worse things have been said about my appearance and writing than this (I’ll let you guess which ones hurt more). If you can’t grow a thick skin while working in publishing, you won’t make it very long.

It’s clear I’m not going to change these particular peoples’ minds, but that’s okay. What ultimately matters is how you conduct yourself and how you treat the people around you. That’s the best testament to the value of your ideals. I’m not going to cheapen myself by trying to hurt someone else, and I would encourage anyone reading this who has dealt with trolls to react the same way.

In the wise words of Michelle Obama, and really this quote will stick with me until the day I die, “When they go low, we go high.”

I wish there wasn’t a need in some people to lash out at strangers. I wish there was more discussion, more respect, more willingness to collaborate, but maybe I’m living in the wrong country for that these days?

For now, though, I’m here and I’m working toward peace. For my own small part, I will keep my hands clean when other people sling mud at me. I’ll do my best to encourage the people who need it, and I’ll be happy to help where I can.

If we’re being super honest, though, Wes and I did have a lot of fun this weekend coming up with other reasons why that commenter probably shouldn’t date anyone, many of which were hilarious but that I’ll keep to myself thankyouverymuch.

So I’m not perfect. Oops. I regret nothing.