I Don't Care

I am pretty good at speaking my mind and standing up for what I believe is right and wrong, no matter how unpopular it is or makes me. When I describe my actions in standing up for what I believe,, I often say that I don’t care how it makes people feel. I see in hindsight that this statement is untrue and does damage to both the person I am sharing with and to myself.

In conversation with a friend I told him that he needed to confront an issue he was not dealing with. He responded, "you do that more easily because it comes naturally to you." I thought about that for a second and recognized that in some ways that’s true but in others not so much. His comment bothered me because it showed I've given people the impression that I don’t have to put any work into standing up for what I think is right. By saying I don’t care how people feel, I reinforce this idea in my head. But I recognize more and more that it is not true.

I will soon be starting a new chapter in my life. The decision I've made to start this new chapter are well reasoned and sound which brings me a lot of confidence in what I’m doing but I also am starting to recognize the discomfort that I feel in doing this. This is a major step for me and by not acknowledging the discomfort that it causes, I rob myself of the ability to see God‘s grace at work in my life and my willingness to suffer.

I also recognize the damage that saying I don’t care does to others. If people think that the only reason someone speaks up is because it causes them no discomfort or pain,, they can easily convince themselves not to follow in that person‘s footsteps because it isn’t as easy for them as I make it out to be for me. If I am honest and say yes I’m going to make this move and it makes me very uncomfortable, I stress about it and I’m anxious about it, but by God’s grace I do it anyway, I open the door for others to follow. This takes away their excuse, and my own, to not make bold moves, a service to all.

Human-written, AI Spell-Checked 3/28/21 AD

Image from Rozbooy at Pixaby