"I didn’t realize this until today, when I received a long post trying to bait me into an argument. It was filled with inaccuracies, incendiary language, narrowmindedness, and plenty enough to make me alternate between “WTF?” and outright laughter. I started to fire back a response and kick them off my forum, but then simply decided not to give them a voice here. There would be no point in trying to change their minds anyway and the message was far too hostile to hope to find common ground, so I let it go and didn’t respond or approve the comment.

Then I noticed something in the daily blog stats. One particular visitor had spent 45 minutes on a single post and its response. Guess who.

They spent 45 minutes of their life on me today, 45 minutes they’ll never get back, to try to prove a point that I’m not inclined to argue. There are so many other places, certainly, that they could have spent those 45 minutes of their lives.

"And not only did I not deign to respond, but I also didn’t give them a voice in my online home.

I’ve never thought much before about how much energy or time it takes to argue with someone who won’t be reconsidering a position, but it was a wonderful reminder to stay focused on people with open minds and like minds, and not waste my time-and life–throwing seeds on infertile ground."

I clipped this as a little reminder to myself, do not argue with a sign post! Good advise, clippers!

I like this clip Sahara, thanks!

Projection.