He said what?

My inspiration for this piece stemmed entirely from the reactions of my peers to my last article printed in the Fiat Lux. It was entitled “Small world, even smaller school” and to summarize, it was about immature students who don’t seem to understand that attending college should go hand in hand with maturing. It tackled the question: Is the amount of education one receives inversely proportional to one's maturity level?

Yes, it was a rather ‘harsh’ opinions piece and yes, I did have a glaring spelling error towards the middle. I apologize for misspelling Mobile, the cell phone company, as Mobil, the gas station. Despite being just one letter off, I couldn’t escape the ruthless denigration from my peers. Those of you who have the power to arrest me, please do so at this time. But for those of you who do not, please remove yourselves, my back is starting to hurt.

Of the dozens of articles I have written for the paper, this one got the most negative attention. This makes me happy. The whole concept behind opinions pieces is to incite reactions in the readers, good or bad. Good articles are supposed to make people think twice about their own beliefs and open up their minds to what other people believe and why they believe it. Readers don’t have to like the piece; they can hate it. But in the process, they are forced to rethink why they themselves believe in the things they do and reevaluate their attitudes. This process is healthy and, believe it or not, makes people stronger.

Over the years, I have noticed that some people don’t care if you do something good, but when you do something that upsets them, they jump down your throat. Case in point, my last article. It happens in politics as well as at Alfred University with our budget cuts. As soon as the budget cuts came to the attention of the students, everyone wanted to have a say. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but sing praises for those ‘good’ things as much as you put down the things that upset you. If you have the ying, keep in mind the yang.

If you have something to say, say it. This seems like the time when most people say, ‘To all of you haters out there…’, but I’m not going to say that. You may have hated my article, but your opinions and comments (even if negative) are nothing to hate. They’re things to be thankful for. I’m not afraid of writing controversial pieces because I believe in what I write. I meant what I said, and said what I meant. I don’t regret writing it and I do not take back anything I wrote.

Let me also add that this piece, like every other, was thoughtfully written. Contrary to popular belief, you can have a thoughtful action that is harsh or perceived as negative by some. If you received flowers for Valentine’s Day, this is perceived as a thoughtful action because someone had to take time and think about getting the flowers, as well as take time out of their day to buy them and deliver them. In the same way, my piece took time to think about, time to write and time to edit, but was perceived by some as trash. Like the feelings for a significant other, I wrote my article with passion and appreciation for what I believe in.

I thank you all for your comments and input. This is what we need more of. Articles need to make people start thinking more about their own standpoints of various topics. Everybody’s a critic and everybody has an opinion, so keep your comments and thoughts coming! And as always, you are welcome to write your own opinions piece for the Fiat Lux any time.