In our most recent newsletter, I wrote about a time where I reacted impulsively and poorly to a set of circumstances happening around me, and it happened in front of some teenagers in my youth group. I discussed four ways in handling when teens see you mess up. In this follow up, I want to go a little further on the subject of impulsive actions, because it seems that where we get in trouble the most, and it seems to happen more often on social media.
Let’s face it, it’s easy to go on a rant when your angry or upset about something and post it on the social media platform of your choice. After all, we feel some sense of security behind a screen. I wonder, however, how many of us would be willing to go address the issue with the person who could do something about our issue, because I think the number of us willing to do so has decreased dramatically because we feel we can go on social media to vent our frustrations without any consequences.
So here’s a bit of advice from former NFL head coach Herm Edwards… “Don’t press send.” If you find yourself agitated enough to write a post, tweet, email or comment, please, before you press send, take a moment to think about how it may come across or look, because once you press “send”, like the words coming out of your mouth, you can’t take it back.
These thoughts above are from Rev. Richard Wood, our partner in ministry for youth, children and social media ministry. He is an associate pastor in Sanford, North Carolina .