criticism

Lately I have been trying to grow a little in the areas of grace, compassion, and understanding when it comes to ideas and opinions I disagree with.

My usual MO is a bit of a "scorched earth" policy; create an avalanche of information and facts that overwhelm my opponent until they have no choice but to back out of the conversation in order to save their sanity.

While this strategy seems to work in accumulating a simple tally of won arguments vs. lost arguments it does little to encourage open dialogue. In retrospect, I realize that in reality, "winning" an argument in such a way is probably not even winning.

I realize that not only does my combative argument style drive people away but it is very time consuming and labor intensive to maintain. I had to be up-to-date on every bit of information and theory in nearly every possible topic area or suffer defeat when someone countered with a piece of information to which I had not previously concocted a rebuttal.

As a husband and father of two young boys I just don't have the time it takes to maintain such an endeavor.

So what is the alternative?

To start I have decided that it is a priority to have principles. As I write this I read a re-post on Twitter that reads, "When one bases his life on principle, 99% of his decisions are already made." (Frank Sonnenburg). What this means to me is that instead of spending all my time finding out what other people think I spend my time concentrated on developing what I think.

The second part of my mini-transformation is, once I have a solid grasp on my principles, to listen better to what others have to say.

If I hope to have a genuine conversation with others that involves a give-and-take of ideas I have to be willing to listen to what they are actually saying rather than make a quick, assumptive generalization so that I can form my counter-argument before they finish their sentence.

I will be honest, I know this is going to be a stretch for me. I LOVE to talk and am VERY opinionated (perhaps an understatement) so holding my tongue so that I can understand another person's position is not natural for me.

But perhaps that is a good thing.

After all, if what was natural for me was the best thing for me I would have no need for growth or change and certainly no need of a Savior.