You lost me at ^*% #%^$

Do you know when you’re winning an argument? When the other person is starting to lose it? It’s when the other person starts to raise their voice followed by yelling with possibly some swear words thrown in for good affect. If it escalates even further you have some type of violence towards person or property. It’s not a pretty sight. Basically, what has happened is the person who starts to raise their voice has let their emotions take over instead of allowing reason and logic to win their case.

Think about this for moment. Isn’t that exactly what happens in a bar fight, disagreement at work or social function? Why is it so hard to accept that another person’ viewpoint may differ from yours? It doesn’t make it wrong, just different. We all have our own worldview and everything is run through these filters first.

You will not be able to understand where someone is coming from unless you find out what made the person reach their conclusion. And how do you do that? You ask lot of questions and then listen for the response. Try to understand their answer from their point of view.

However, when you’re having a conversation and one or both person(s) becomes emotionally unhinged, the possibility of having meaningful dialogue has just been killed and the hope of reason returning will only occur when cooler heads prevail.

I bring this up in regards to the continuing protests. There’s nothing wrong with protesting but once it turns to violence the message has been lost. The focus then is on the violent action and not the protester’s message. Is that what the protesters really want?