Choose your time and place

“Choose your time and place. Be wise with your words. Don’t waste your breath on people who aren’t open to listening. But if you know your message was given to you, don’t hold it back. There is someone who needs to hear it and God will soften their heart to receive it.”

@kristinmockleryoung from her post “Instagram is not your pulpit” on turningthegem.com

Something I really struggle with here is how to show up in the comments. When this page first started is was pretty easy because there weren’t a lot of comments and on the rare occasion I received more than one they weren’t super long. Now; you all leave some really long, detailed, and thoughtful comments! I feel inclined to respond to them all but time restraints make it a little difficult. Plus - in addition to the slew of supporting comments I get there are some that dissent quite strongly. I’m not opposed to that because it happens often where I stated an incorrect opinion, or didn’t think through a post entirely, and honestly, sometimes I’m flat out wrong.

It really struck me in Kristin’s post where she said “I can choose when and how to engage.” Really, it’s ok to not respond to every comment and react to every dissent. Sometimes people do want to learn or ask me to clarify and I try to be responsive to those; but sometimes, people are just posting their own opinion. Worse, sometimes people are looking to fight. I don’t know about you but arguing with people in comments stresses me out. Discussion I’m all for; arguments….eh, you can find someone else to argue with.

Her post ends with the quote above and I think it sums up a good strategy with how to be a real person on social media.