Regarding the Special Edition MMM last week, here are a couple of follow up thoughts on my suggested responses…

Be thoughtful and intentional with social media posts, and be careful about what you believe on those forums.

·   Consider the old adage, “think before you speak”, a similar thought process should be applied to social media posting, “think before you hit enter”.  There is a lot of misinformation out there, as well as just plain useless information.  Impactful social media posts are grounded in facts and well thought out opinions.  We need more of that and less one-word shares of attention getting false information.

Educate yourself with facts from a variety of sources

·      We know that many media sources are full of biases and agendas, as such we need to broaden our sources to gather various viewpoints.  Educating yourself by researching topics and verifying stories takes time, but it is necessary.  Take the time. Educate yourself.

Be blessed…

Choices

Life is made up of a series of choices.  We make choices each day of our life by prioritizing activities and choosing courses of action.  It is often frustrating and challenging to make those choices.  The alternatives are equally appealing, and the ramifications of the decisions seem so serious.  The best we can do at any one point in time is to make a choice with the information and knowledge available to us at that point in time. Consider your alternatives, study your options, seek spiritual guidance and make an educated decision.  Once a choice has been made, go on down the road of life.  There is no value to be gained from beating ourselves up over past choices and poor decisions.  Sure, we should learn from past decisions, but there really is no need to re-live poor choices or to constantly second guess ourselves.  Learn from those choices and grow. Make the best choice you can with the information available to you at the time. 

Have a blessed week making choices…

Listening

Listening is a favorite topic of the MMM.  People can listen at a rate of 600 words per minute, but they can only talk only at 100 to 150 words per minute.  As a result listeners are easily distracted, they can process more information than a person speaking to them can deliver.  The challenge is to use the extra time, the extra processing capacity, to listen more productively.  Unfortunately, most people start planning what they are going to say next instead of listening to the speaker’s concluding words.  Ironically, the last sentence, which usually contains the meat or most important point, is totally missed by most listeners.  Think about it, how often are you planning a response and not listening to someone speaking to you?

Slow down and listen...