In the end, I'm really not accountable to you, cyberworld...

It is the age of technology.  It's a great age....it's nice to have a charged cell phone when you're out late at night....you can always call someone if something happens.  It's nice to sit around the computer screen and play games on facebook and talk to all your 'friends' from way back in elementary to now.  It's good to belong to several communities online and chit chat.  There's just one catch....

Even online, not everyone is going to like you....it's not a "safe haven" like one thinks it is and will be better than interacting in real life.  Sometimes it's worse because you don't have the pragmatic/total body language package to go along with it.  You see it all the time in different forums, in the comments after news articles online....people get offended and then the level of how to respond escalates. 

You know the old saying....ok maybe it's just a family saying "not everyone is going to like you and that's ok"  well it really is true.  Even if you were the most saintly person in the whole world, some people are still not going to like you or like what you have to say.  What are we/you going to do about it?  Get offended? stomp off in a huff and demand that people think like you?  hmmmm  highly unlikely. 

I'm a peacemaker.  I like to sit down on the couch, sip coffee and have a lively discussion with you, then I like to leave still as friends.  Sometimes this approach jives with people, sometimes it doesn't.  That's not something I can help if I act respectfully and without name calling.  So for 2011, my resolve is to act respectfully in real life and in cyberville, however, if someone feels the need to be rude back, there's nothing I can do.  After all, in the grand scheme of things, I'm not going to be accountable to them and they aren't accountable to me either.  As long as I act as I should in God's eyes, then I've done all I can.  And you know what, that's good enough for me at the moment. 

So discuss, disagree, debate, have a lively engagement, I just hope that in the end it remains civil and if not, then may you remember "you're not accountable to them, and they are not accountable to you". 

And that is my summation of thoughts that I've had for the past week after observing some conversations in cyberville.  The end.  I'm done with the subject.