Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn

By Rich Smith, 07-11-2018

I love the internet. I love social media. If you asked my wife, I spend far too much time on my phone. Mostly for Atlas stuff, but also for my hobbies too. Our world has changed so much over the past few years, and we've all just fallen in line. We've accepted the new norms, probably because most of them make our lives better. The very nature of the internet means there is no place to hide. But with anything in life, with the good comes the bad. Evidence based, constructive criticism isn't the same as destructive negativity. Truths are truths, no matter where they are presented. Bad is bad, no matter how it manifests. Let's not confuse the message based on the delivery method. But...that's not my point here.

Some people just want to watch the world burn. I took that line from a movie, but there is a lot of truth to it. I see it every day in some of the Facebook groups I'm in, and especially from one I'm no longer a part of. The internet has made it really easy to judge a person, or a company, or an organization while hiding behind your keyboard. But is it right? And what good does it do?

I can't take credit for this either, but it's true. Gary Vaynerchuk speaking to a group of small business owners said: "There are people that do, and then there are people who judge the people that do. Those people judge because the ones that do expose their bullshit." It's easy to be the judge. It's easy to complain. It's easy to point fingers. It's hard to find solutions and move them to a positive resolution. It's hard to be one of the people that do. The people that do generally don't have time to tear others down. It's in their best interest to lift others up. The people that do understand that positivity makes the world better.

The magic of the internet is that you can turn it off. You can leave the groups that are nothing but negative. You don't have to associate with those that choose to tear others down. Unfriend, block, ignore. The world doesn't have to be a mean, nasty place. There is a lot of good out there. Find the good.