Thinking Time

Having time to think can be a good thing as well as a bad thing. We all know this. It can be a real bastard of an arse when you're lying in bed, trying to sleep and thoughts keep spinning around, stopping your brain from turning off and letting you get some cocking sleep. On the other hand, it can be a real un-bastard when you have something you want to say or respond to, yet you take some time to think before you go ahead and do so.

Do you remember the last time you wrote a letter? Not an email, an actual physical letter that you would send via a postal service (or "Snail Mail", as smug bastards like to call it... the smug bastards). A letter is something you take your time over and think about. Then, you send it off, the recipient reads it, then writes a carefully thought out reply. It seems like a different world, now. People are quick to mock "old-fashioned" letter writing, but at least you had time to think before writing and sending.

The problem now, is that we can communicate with each other instantly, before we've actually thought things through. You can very easily click "send" without thinking and before you know it, you're well and truly fuckered, because you wrote something in the heat of the moment and because you're used to instant messaging, you didn't think to re-read it. You just sent it.

Before anyone has a go at me, yes, I know I tweet, email and text and everything, but over half of the things I write off the top of my head ends up being deleted and forever unseen by anyone else, because I stop, re-read and think. Unfortunately, it seems not everyone does and as a result, lots of nasty shitness snowballs out of proportion, leading to bullying and a lot worse. It's one of the main reasons why I left Facebook last year and it's now increasingly becoming a reason why I find myself having to step away from Twitter on occasion, as it's unpleasant to watch and turns such platforms into the kind of evil forum that lazy-arsed "experts" have already branded it as, despite not actually knowing what it is. 

Now, I'm not going to launch into a "masterclass" on how to use Twitter or anything, as I'm not a gold-plated wank suppository, but I really think that if more people stopped to think before posting a tweet, email, text etc. a lot of this nasty, shitty, bollocky stuff just wouldn't happen. 


Of course, this isn't the only reason why it happens, but it's quite sad that such a basic thing we all used to do has all but been forgotten and if you really don't think this applies to you, then maybe you should stop and think...