I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Stoic.

Be a good person. That’s it. The line between a good person and a jerk can be blurred. I’ve stopped checking social media regularly. It’s something I’ve done for over a year now and I can tell you I don’t miss it. I still check it every once and a while. It’s decreased since the pandemic. I’d check it once or twice a day. Now I go days without checking it because there’s a lot of toxicity. This toxicity, unfortunately, comes from people I respect.

The pandemic is an emotionally charge thing. It has brought out the good in people and also the worst. When talking about phishing emails I talk about the amygdala being hijacked by an attacker. The same thing has happened for people on social media talking about the pandemic. When I do check my feed, I see a lot of hate towards other people. It’s not from the people you would expect. It’s from the people who have taken the pandemic to heart. I see very mean things being said and retweeted about those who won’t wear a mask.

Research aside, I don’t see compassion from people who think they’re doing the right thing. They believe that their view, the scientific and good person view is the only view and those other people are awful. It’s really disheartening, because it’s coming from people I respect. It makes me feel for those people. It also highlights that while we might think we’re doing the good that we’ve succumbed to our own passions and desires for other people instead of trying to be understanding and view the other side. That is what makes us a good person.