Franco Cianflone (Winnipeg)
When you choose love over hate, faith over despair and acceptance over intolerance, you are doing your part to change the world.
“People who love themselves don’t hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.” — Dan Pearce
Cyberbullying and harassment in society today has been incredibly rampant. Regardless of age, many kids, youths, adults and seniors have been subjected to cyberbullying and in some cases resulting in suicide, which is beyond tragic.
The statistics are staggering.
This is a very serious, societal issue that has wreaked havoc on a wide spectrum of individuals worldwide.
Some social media open platforms have flourished financially and will do anything to promote more dialogue good, bad or indifferent. However, recently some social media platforms have understood the damage that has been inflicted and are now revising their terms of use and policies.
We don’t live in a perfect world and as a result there will always be issues when two or more people are involved.
Unfortunately and as a result, many people have resorted to the court of social media as they can easily hide behind the veil of anonymity and spew hatred, intolerance and everything else that falls into this category
Fortunately, there is the judicial system in most civilized countries however some people are not interested in the facts. They are more interested in creating drama through conjecture. Most often, their lack of due diligence has promoted non- truths and misinformation.
These people are actually decent human beings with families and jobs but somehow got caught up in online mobs that are no different than street mobs anywhere on the planet.
All it takes is one or two individuals that believe that their mission in life is to defame, slander, intimidate and persecute individuals regardless of socio-economic demographics.
In most cases, they spew without performing their due diligence regarding the facts as their ongoing dialogue inspires more hatred based on conjecture.
Taking their perceived plight to a civil court is unimaginable, as then the rule of law would apply and they would have to terminate their bullying or harassment.
Who are these people?
They might be your neighbors next door, people across the street, others in your city, in another province or state or across the globe.
Most often as a result of intensive forensic investigation their real identities, location and workplaces are revealed. Corporations have paid huge dollars to forensic investigators and litigators in order to bring these people to justice.
Some victims of the bullying and harassment have opted to publish similar vindictive group or individual pages that exposes the actual name(s) and pictures of the perpetrator(s) and their workplace locations.
No one wins in the scenario described above.
No one!
The only winner is the open platform that has continued to gain momentum financially.
Finally, the greatest weapon in the universe is to extend love and compassion and absolutely pray for these people and forgive them.
Sasha Baron Cohen, the recipient of the Anti-Defamation League’s international leadership award recently delivered a speech.
This is the link and begins at 9:35 in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM
It is time for all of us collectively to stop this barrage of online bullying and harassment in our schools, communities, and workplaces.
Hopefully, the advent of this current pandemic will cause people everywhere to appreciate that we are all interdependent.
The only enemy that can bring people together as it has at this juncture is this pandemic.
When this pandemic has run its course, hopefully more people on the planet will choose love over hate.
CHOOSE LOVE NOT HATE
Sally Hogshead stated this beautifully in one of her blogs, “There will always be someone who believes you are wrong, or bad, or broken, or imperfect. But the truth is, we are all perfectly imperfect, every one of us. Live your life with passionate imperfection. Love your mistakes and so-called imperfections. Never stoop to hate. Hate is easy, but love is hard, very hard. Choose to love. Refuse to live an insignificant life. The world is not changed by people who sort of care. You do not need to “fix” yourself, because who you are is exactly right. And we will always, always love you for who you already are.”
Maybe there’s another Greta Thunberg out there that can change the world.
Thank you for reading this and now, go out and change the world.
Franco Cianflone
1 ON 1 COACHING
Carpe Momentum
Mental Toughness For Life
Copyright 2020