A few years ago when I got my very first teaching job I was asked to teach a Freshman Transitions class. The idea behind the class was to give high school freshman the skills they needed to survive high school and look at how current choices affect future choices. One of the very first concepts I taught in the class was the idea of a paradigm. If you're not familiar with what a paradigm is it is basically the way you see the world. So the way I'd explain it to the students is that each of us wears a hypothetical pair of glasses. The lenses of these glasses are shaped by our attitudes, experiences, beliefs, self-image, etc... The "pair of glasses" we each wear is our own personal paradigm.
Now throughout my life I have met many people and it is interesting to get a small glimpse into each of the paradigms they hold. In general I don't see a lot of really warped paradigms, in general as a human race most of us see things quite close to reality and can accept things as they are. However this post is not about these people so please don't think that I am painting with a broad brush, I know that most people do not have such an unusual view of the world and I am not talking to those of us who can see things as they are.
That being said here is the meat of my message: I am SICK to death of people with warped paradigms who try to push what they see onto everyone else. The catalyst of this post comes mostly from the over abundance of webpage shares that seem to breed like jack-rabbits on my Facebook page. Most recently I've seen several shares of a blogger who claims all should boycott a recent animated movie because it pushes a liberal gay agenda. I read this article and had to put my computer down before I punched something. My brain just spun with the thoughts of Why? and Seriously? Why do people feel the need to read so deeply into things that are so simple? Why can't we just take things at face value? Is there really that much hate and fear that someone would stamp something as simple as a child's movie with such a broad and damning accusation?
I kept my mouth shut on the matter but lo and behold within the last week more posts have hopped up on my feed ranging from electronic devices will destroy your children!, your car seat will KILL your child, don't touch plastic or you'll get breast cancer, using deodorant will eat your underarms & KILL you! This list could go on & on & on but I'll leave it at that because I think you all understand what it is that I am talking about.
Now let me be very blunt for a second. First of all most of these "expert" webpages are nothing more than a blogger. That's right folks a person just like you and me with a keyboard expressing their paradigm. I can't stress this enough but evaluate your sources!!!! Unless this said "expert" has proof of their credentials I'm not putting much credence into their claim (and also research the "experts" or "scientists" they are quoting, you may just find it's a bunch of crap).
Secondly ask yourselves what is the author's paradigm? Yep, that's what it boils down to. Everything in this world has someone who hates it. People even hate things like puppies, babies, and flowers and usually it is these people who will try to push their extreme paradigm onto the rest of us. They've taken the glasses off of their face and are desperately trying to shove them onto your nose. Please, for the love, don't just blindly place these lenses on your face. Use the paradigms you already have to really evaluate if what they're pushing is something worth altering your own lenses for or if what they are saying is something that will only cause harm. Stop putting duct tape over your own glasses and just grabbing the first pair that comes along! We need to see all the lenses and glasses before we can make a decision of which pair is right for us, we need to be doing the same when we assess information presented to us.
I know I probably offended some people but the paradigm that I am pushing on you (and yes I am pushing my paradigm on you) is that we need to be more educated about the things that we believe that alter our lives and behaviors. Use the brain in your head to choose a healthy paradigm that will give you a fulfilling life and not one full of anger or fear mongering. Keep your glasses clear and lenses clean in order to see things as they really are, be careful of these "expert" articles spiraling around Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and so on that would have you alter your own reality in order to see theirs. It is your God-given right to believe what you want but I hope for your sake (and mine) that you make educated decisions on these things.
