Becoming a Changed Person
Ever since I got older, I've always prided myself as someone who has matured and wasn't like the little kid I was back in the day who would spend hours online arguing with strangers just to prove one silly point or the other.
But in reality, the truth is that ever since I got older, I've never really found myself in any situation where my maturity got tested, and this is because the older I got, the less time I spent on the internet interacting with people. I went from being an active person on apps like WhatsApp and Facebook to being someone who only observes. I found peace in watching and doing nothing else, not even leaving likes or comments on anything.
Well, today, I finally got tested, and it didn't come from a stranger; it came from someone who I considered to be a friend from high school. You see, my class has a WhatsApp group that we use to stay in touch with one another, and earlier today when I went into that WhatsApp group, I noticed an announcement there talking about a female classmate of mine who hasn't been feeling too well for seven months now, and they wanted us to call her to say hi.
When I read that announcement, I noticed that no one mentioned the name of the sickness, so I asked so that I could properly understand the situation, know how serious it was, and also know how to talk to them when I call to say hi, only for this person to start insulting me, claiming that it was insensitive for me to ask that question.
Mind you, the lady who has been sick isn't a member of the group; she wasn't in it, so the question I asked wasn't directed to her but to the guy who made the announcement, and for some weird reason he (the guy who made the announcement) was angered by my question.
He kept on insulting me, and with each voice note I listened to, I felt myself getting more and more upset, and all I wanted to do was insult him back and just lose control, but somehow I held back and watched everyone else in the group come to my defense.
I won't lie, it wasn't a good feeling holding back because I wanted to insult him so bad, but now that it's all over, I'm actually proud of myself for holding back the way I did. It just shows that truly, my days of fighting online might just be truly over.
You can't control what the environment and people around throw at you but you sure have control over your reactions because by the time you react it makes you and them even in which case you might just be full of regret as to why you reacted
So well done and see how people came to your defence when you didn't react
That regret is what I'm happy I didn't get to experience because it's one of the worse feeling out there.