About Estebans post, a few thoughts… I think the most important thing to recognize is that every situation is different and everyone’s response to whatever you do (“calling someone out”) will vary.

Sometimes “calling someone out” can be good. Sometimes it’s just not worth it.  That’s why intuition and reading the situation is important.  A couple examples:

There is a mad, aggressive, immature, drunk dude at the ga that just wants to fight.  Telling him that his behavior is inappropriate would just cause him to get more upset.  The way you deal with this guy?  Ignore him. Walk away. Or speak calmly to him and change the subject but don’t tell him what to do.

Catcalling. Dude catcalls. A guy says to the catcaller. “Hey man, that’s inappropriate.”

Woman being catcalled says:

• “Thank you.”     OR
• “umm. I can take care of myself thank you very much.”

Whoa. And you were just trying to help right?  Now you upset them both.

So it’s very tricky. All of this is very tricky. What actually is said doesn’t really matter. What matters is how we perceive and react to what is said. 

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” ― Marcus Aurelius

Feelings are neither right or wrong.  They are always right to whoever is having the feeling because they are the one having it.  I personally think humor is great for diffusing situations. How we deal with conflict can be either constructive or destructive.  We can go ballistic on someone or take a break, catch our breath and then come back and talk.

Say someone says something that infuriates you.  Literally makes you want to rip their head off.  So many things happen.  Your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises and your blood flows to your muscles as part of ‘fight or flight’ so you can beat someone up or gtfo.

At the same time, glucose levels rise to give muscles more energy and adrenal glands pump out more adrenaline.  Your pupils enlarge and your lungs expand for more oxygen but now less blood is flowing to your brain. 

Now since our brain is receiving less oxygen from our blood when we are angry our thinking is not clear.  So we are super hyped up with more energy and can’t reason.  Perfect.  We react impulsively and say things we regret.  How many divorces are caused by this extra 20 heart beats per minute?  This is when those hurtful things are said that can never be taken back.  If your heart rate exceeds 100 beats per minute you can not hear what someone is trying to tell you.  We need to monitor our physiology during our tense discussions for signs of flooding.

It’s important to realize that we are all just wounded people triggering each other.

Some man may be a total asshole.  Well, he may have been beat all the time as a child.  Some woman may not be too nice and scowl when you say hi.  Well you probably didn’t know that she was pushed down the stairs by her boyfriend which resulted in a miscarriage.  Point is, if we were all to know WHY people act the way they do, our ANGER would shift to COMPASSION.  That is where grace comes in. Grace for each other and grace for our mistakes. None of us is perfect and we are all learning from each other.

We have grown up in and have been brainwashed by this harsh society that celebrates peoples failures and laughs at them when they gain weight.  Cultural schadenfreude is a symptom of a society losing empathy.  Our very system, the one we’re fighting against is designed to kick people when they’re down.  You got cancer?  Oh, were sorry to hear that but now you’re gonna have to file bankruptcy and your house is going to get foreclosed on too. Sucks to be you! Bye!

But we’re not doing that here. Right?  We want to create something new.  We want to all grow together. Yes?  Well then let’s do that and try that. Lets be kind to each other. Say hi to each other.  Smile at each other. 

Anybody you’ve already decided “you don’t like”? 

FORGET IT.  Start over.  Get rid of those feelings and say hi to them the next time you see them.  Get to know them.  I guarantee you don’t have the full picture and your view will change.  THAT is maturity.

We don’t need to change others or be the behavior police.  We can lead by example and others will follow.  We only need 10%.