Well friends we have gone another round and round again we shall go.

The day before the day that is so highy anticipated every week is drawuing to a close, coming up on the midnight mark, the witching hour.

It has been a long and tiring day.  One that I no more had the mental energy for a mental moment in the afternoon then I had to …  do much really.

I spent a better part of the day being argumentative.  That takes a lot of mental energy out of you I think.  I know it is so hard to picture me being , what is the word? difficult right?  I Mean live and let live and you really have to hit it just right to get me to pontificate from a other than middle position and make waves on your blog.  I rant here all the time but I rarely start stuff elsewhere.

I am not a shit stirrer, except  in a mischievous impish kind of way I like to have a little fun sometimes,  or a drama queen and sometimes I don;t even know that I had such a strong ..opinion about something or exactly what my stance is until I am knee deep in ..um lets say a spirited debate.

This is the second time in about a week.  I need to take a mental hourand really look at why i feel the need to stir the pot. Take accountability for my own actions and figure out my motives so I can go back to being all happy make love not war kinda.  I mean I still don;t believe that my way is right, just that my view and thoughts are worth considering as am I, and are you and you and you…  all of us.

I called someone an ass today.  Yea right there on his blog.  He was being one but ..  😕  weird right?  Typically when I make a gaffe of that magnitude I am sorry as soon as it is out of my mouth or off my finger tips.  like DOH! Not today, the doh moment came way later… I called him an ass becasue he took sonething I said and thought I was being .. whatever and pissed me off mightily woith a low blow that I didn;t deserve becasue I was being honest and not prejudiced although I think he thought so whatever… the point is .. he didn;t hear what  Iwas saying or why I was saying it.. and I missed some if his point too… cause he was being an ass but yea…  

So I decided a night time mental moment would be better today.  And there you kind of had a bed time story.

Tonight’s Mental Moment

When it is late at night like this and the kids are sound asleep, I like to go outside and sit on the patio and just listen.  Have you ever done that?

Taken the time to justt be in the moment and open your ears and your mind to the sounds of mature?  Have you heard the trees talk to you and the wind whisper?  Or how about the orchestra of crickets playing nightly to a packed house?

Tonight I got to thinking about this about listening and how we don;t listen and really hear each other sometimes and that if we did take the time instead of reacting to what we thought we heard, we might avoid a lot of misunderstanding and conflict.

Consider this:

It is not in our nature to want to hurt another human being.  Physically or mentally.  Of course we joke about wanting to choke the living you know what out of soneone when we are frustrated but I mean to sit and think abour how can I hurt someone who hasn;t done anything to you, or even hurt the one you love.  I mean if you are sitting there plotting how to hurt your loved one, then maybe its not love?  Just saying.

WIth that in mind, when someone attacks you verbally, and says hurtful things that well they hurt and often it will end the dialogue, are they really attacking you, or are they defending themselves.   The answer is most often defense.  The best defense is a good offense, or..,is it the best offense is a good defense – yeah that s it..

Lets say person A write a post and person B cones along and reads said post and doesn’t agree.  SO they put a comment and then Person A gets defensive because they are not getting the validation they want need or whatever.  And we all do want to have our thoughts and musings liked… ok ,maybe not all but most of us.  Acceptance validation etc etc.

So Person A who is now on the defense says something snarky and hurtful to Person B.. and heerrrree we go .. ladies and gentlemen in the corner .. ya dig?

If we go back and look at it in slow motion, under the part that said I don’t agree was another that said but this is a great post and very thoughtful and needed to be said…  Person A missed that the first time because they were already defensive when the part about not agreeing and then they attack Person B who in turn feels defensive.. see, there really is no offense.  Other than … the one of not giving the full attention someone deserves to them.

So tomorrow when we are all moving around the blogoshere and we encounter what may be  high conflict area, or blogger, maybe its one of your readers and their connents, maybe its a new person checking you out, maybe it might be me for gosh sakes (I am trying not to stir the pot tomorrow, remember that too )  before jumping into the fray, take the time to listen, ok read what the other person really is saying with a neutral mind and open heart.  They don’t want to hurt you they have not a reason to, so stop look and listen, you may learn something and make a new friend or just learn something but the friend touch is nice too….

Just listen….  do you hear the trees talking and the wind as it whispers?

To your Mental State whatever it may be,