Project ME: Consider Your Motivation

Long before the clock struck midnight, and the New Year began I had been thinking about “project ME”. I tried to decide just what I wanted to gain from it, and how I would even begin to take it on. Thankfully the answers were quite simple, I want to have peace in my heart, and free my head from negativity. I want to be happy with who I am, and to be comfortable in my own skin. While the answers were easy the process to obtaining that is going to be the hard part. 

I figured if I started working on the negativity, my heart is sure to follow, so that is what I am doing. One of the ways I plan on doing that is by taking the time to stop and consider what my motivation is for saying or doing something I may not feel completely comfortable with. Am I not comfortable with it because I feel it is wrong? Or is it that I am afraid of what others might think?

A few days ago I practiced this for the first time, and honestly the outcome was somewhat surprising to me.

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, which I do several times a day, and I saw 2 friends had both posted this:

Now reading my blog I am sure you are able to find many instances in which I have used incorrect grammar, or even the wrong word all together! I try not to make these mistakes, but I’ll be honest, my mind is much more math oriented. Grammar just does not come easy to me. I can not even tell you how many times I have read a sentence over several times trying to decide which word pairing was correct, so it’s not that I don’t care. That is why when I saw the first comment posted was this:

“ Wish people knew how to type! No idea how one cannot understand proper grammar anymore!”

I was annoyed, and even a little offended. I quickly typed up this response:

But I didn’t post it right away. Instead I read it over a few times. The first couple of times trying to insure that ever single word was used correctly, and then to consider how it might be received. This is where the old Summer would delete the comment because it quite possibly would offend the original poster. I even left the comment un-posted and scrolled down my feed a bit before coming back and hitting send.

I felt the person very well could have gotten offended and unfriended me, but after really thinking it over, and keeping “project ME” in mind I felt it was worth it to have my voice heard, and I am glad that I did. I woke up to a PM from the poster in the morning saying that they hoped that they did not upset me and that they would never intentionally make someone feel bad over grammar.

Is this going to change the world? Of course not. But might that poster think twice about posting things designed to belittle others in the future? I truly hope so. 

Now this is where I am going to give you the challenge to consider your own motivations. Are you coming from a place of true compassion, concern and/or caring? Or are your intentions mean spirited and fueled by fear, jealousy or insecurity?