If We Want To Make A Change, We Need To See The Good In All Of Us
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This blog post was going to be titled “Should We Really Be Ending People’s Careers On Social Media?” but upon writing the last few words, I realized that this blog post was about more than that.
We live in a world where whenever someone does one mistake, everybody will instantly jump at them on social media.
We would all be witnessing the ending of one’s career and life thanks to the power of the internet.
“You’re cancelled” they would say while everybody is working together to make sure that the person who commited a mistake (however grave it may be) are indeed cancelled and that nobody ever supports that person ever again.
Here’s my problem with that though.
As much as people are preaching and screaming “stop the bullying!” we, as a whole, still created a society/an environment that is very much based and praising bullying — Bullying someone who bullied first is still bullying. And bullying someone who did something bad, doesn’t make what you’re doing good. — I’m not saying that the people that the internet is trying to “cancel” didn’t do anything wrong.
I, myself, have unfollowed some people when I didn’t agree with their behavior or what they said and did.
But I have never gone ahead and insulted another human being or tried to cancel or invalidate their existence.
Maybe that’s the INFJ-T in me but I simply cannot do such a thing nor give support in the form of likes or claps or double taps or reposts to anyone who tries to cancel/invalidate another human being’s existence.
The truth is that, I believe in us.
I believe in all of us.
And as much as I’d like to be like everybody else and be able to hate someone else for doing a horrific mistake, I just can’t bring myself to do it.
Because I think that once we do that, once we cast any individual away forever for making a horrific mistake, or any kind of mistake really, we deny them of change.
We deny them of the ability to ever change and be better.
Because no matter what they will do or say, even if it is something genuinely good, we will remind them of what they did or who they were and we will only see them as their mistakes.
And I think that it’s no way to treat another human being.
Yes, maybe this person did a horrific thing but nobody should ever believe that all they are is their mistakes.
Because if we do that then each and every one of us should also be seen as our mistakes and nothing else.
And if we were all only seen/identified by our mistakes, we would see that none of us are really good.
Absolutely none.
Sure, some might be better than others because their mistake is less grave but since our mistakes and our past bad behaviors is actually who we are, how we’re seen and it’s never going to change then that means that none of us are really good and none of us are ever going to get better.
And even if we might be good people deep down and we might have done tremendous good for the world, this doesn’t count because all that we are and ever will be is our mistakes (however small or big) and our bad behaviors.
See how that way of thinking suddenly just makes all of us bad human beings?
I believe that change is possible for any and all of us.
There is no such thing as a “mistake that you cannot recover from”.
Although I do understand the concept of such a thing, I do not believe that it’s entirely true.
Everybody is capable of change and everybody is capable of being a good and better human being.
No matter how grave the mistake was.
Some people will probably make bigger mistakes than others and as much as we’d like to admit that it’s not part of the human behavior, it is.
The human, much like the universe, works in very mysterious ways.
I’m not validating questionable bad behaviors that some human beings might have had but in a way it’s still very much part of being human.
Human beings do strange things.
And the universe is equally as strange.
That doesn’t mean that everything is bad.
And that doesn’t mean that everything is not good.
So if we go back to my initial question, “Should We Really Be Ending People’s Careers On Social Media?”
My personal answer is no.
And this answer also goes to “if you do something bad, are you automatically a bad person (forever)?”
I think that at the time when someone is commiting a bad thing, that person is, indeed, a bad person for doing it. But that doesn’t mean that they are an overall bad person who is not capable of doing something good and of becoming better in time.
Becoming a better person takes time and maybe some people will make 100 mistakes before getting there.
Once again, I’m not validating or supporting the very grave mistakes that some people have done which affected other people, other than themselves.
I’m just allowing them to change.
And I hope that despite whatever they did, or whatever any of us ever did or do or will do, I hope that they/us will take that path towards change.
And I hope that all of us can allow those who did/do/will do wrong to take that path too.
Because to make a change, it’ll take all of us to step into that path towards a better self and towards a better world.
And none of us should ever be blocking that path to another being.
We can all be good and be better.
We can all do good and do better.
Let’s not deny that possibility of a change to another being.
That’s what “making a change” really is about.
“Making a change” means allowing each and every one of us to walk towards this path of change in order for all of us to be better, do better and for all of us to live a better life together.
Thank you for stopping by, hope you’ve had a nice stay! ❤︎
