Mister Reasonable

Well, this might come as a surprise to some of you, but I consider myself to be somewhat of a reasonable man.

I consider myself to be very charitable, and I think that my reasonableness is known to most people.

Now, that's not to say that I've arrived or that I'm always reasonable or that I'm always as charitable as I could be.

I'm not delusional to think that I've made it or I've arrived, but I do practice being reasonable, and I think all you should do that as well.

The Bible says, let your reasonableness be known to all. And one of the ways that I practice this is that I try to practice being friends and respecting and teaming up with people who don't do things the way

I do, who don't necessarily think all the same things that I do and who have different strategies for dealing with conflict than I do.

I think the question that all of us need to ask ourselves, especially people that are engaged online, people that are engaged in video, on Twitter, in real life, that's another place where probably people should be engaged.

One thing that you could practice is just a little piece of advice that I'll give you, is being friendly and being friends with people who are harsher than you and also being friends with people who are not as harsh as you, maybe who are a little more charitable than you, who are willing to give more benefit of the doubt than you do.

You see, here's the thing. I think all of us in theory know that we're not perfect, but a lot of times in practice, we act as if we are.

So if somebody says something in a harsher way or in maybe a little bit more of a sharper way than you would, well, that's got to be something wrong, right?

That's got to be sinful. That's got to be mean. Or if somebody doesn't do something as harsh as you would.

So in other words, someone is a little bit more charitable, someone's willing to give more of the benefit of the doubt than you would. Well, they must be compromising.

They must be soft on this issue, right? And what you're doing when that's kind of your approach is you're setting yourself up as the standard.

You're acting as if you've got it 100 % perfect. You're always striking the right balance.

And I think that when we think about that for just a moment, we know that's not true. And so I have friends that say things that I wouldn't say.

I'll tell you that. A lot of people think that I'm very courageous or I'm very spicy and stuff like that.

And I got to be honest, I don't really think I am. Maybe I am, but there are a lot of people out there that would say things that I would never say.

You know what I mean? And I also likewise have friends and I like people who don't do things as aggressively as I would.

Now, it's okay to criticize that. I'm not saying you shouldn't criticize that and say, hey, you should probably be sharper.

You should probably be a little harsher here or a little bit more strong here. It's okay to criticize it.

Can we still be friends with people who don't do things exactly the way you would? For someone who gives a hot take that you wouldn't give, for someone who edits something that you wouldn't edit, someone who puts a spin on something that you wouldn't have done.

Are you the standard? I don't think that's very reasonable and I try to practice not doing that myself.