Ignorance

The worst thing you could do to a person is to ignore them. Because when you ignore a person, you deny this person from the most fundamental of all rights, the rights to be heard. Everyone deserves to be heard. No matter how stupid or unimportant the message may seem, no one should ever be ignored.

It might seem like a small thing and I might have made a big deal out of this, but I still think there’s something bigger going on when you ignore someone. Here are some examples I’ve come up with.

Let’s pretend you’re a parent to a child. He asks you a question, “What language do penguins speak in?” you decide to ignore him because of what a stupid question he’s asking. He asks you again. You still ignore him. He asks you the third time. You start to get a little annoyed. Just as he started to ask again, you snapped him halfway, blasting him saying “How should I know?! Can you please stop asking stupid questions I don’t know how to answer?” the boy kept silent, he stopped asking, and you found peace. Everything seems fine, so you thought. But it’s not. You might not realize, but you’ve just destroyed the boy’s curiosity. It’s typical for a child to be curious of his surroundings, but when you ignore him at this state, you make him believe that asking these things is a sin. He’ll have troubles exploring his mind. Some children learn to adapt, they keep their thoughts to themselves, but the thoughts are still there for them to ponder upon. But other children aren’t as strong. They completely shut down their whole imagination because their parents despise this habit of questioning everything. In the end, they’ll have a terrible unimaginative childhood and grow up to be a very very dull person. Take it this way: a crying baby would not stop crying until someone comforts him. Because he wants compassion and that warm fuzzy feeling of being loved. If we deny him of this small act, he’ll grow up unhappy and rebellious: love deprived. Same thing goes with a child with all these questions in his head. If there’s no one to share this thing developing in his brain, sooner or later it will die off and all that good imagination will go to waste.

A man threatens you. Screaming and yelling in his pursuit to break you. But you show no reaction. He screams even louder hoping you’d snap. Again, nothing. He walks away furiously, giving up his attempts. It’s true what they say, when someone tries to attack you in any way, ignorance is the best revenge. Simply by doing nothing, you can change a situation from bad to good or sometimes, vice versa. Because when you show no reaction at all to a person criticizing you, it shows that all the effort being put to bring you down does nothing towards you. It shows that you couldn’t care less at what is going on. It just screams “You got nothing on me”. This is a good thing to you, but a bad thing to the dude. Even though he might have started it, by ignoring him, you place a huge scar on his heart. He will never forget how he was humiliated, how he failed to break you in every way. It’s good if he stops yelling and screaming, yes. But what if this issue grows on something even more? What if because of what had happened, this man questions his manhood? His dignity? His self esteem? He could easily break down and change to be someone totally different (not necessarily for the better). Maybe even, by ignoring him, he evaluated himself and improved his yelling techniques. Until eventually, he finally breaks you apart. In this matter, consider the pros and cons of ignoring a person yelling at you, then only you act.

To sum it up, don’t ignore people. How would you feel if someone ignored you? Even if you disagree, even if you don’t know how to answer, even if you hate the person, do not ignore. Ignorance truly is the worst thing you could do. At least just acknowledge that you hear the person is good enough, you don’t even have to say anything. A simple nod would be just heavenly, rather than giving nothing back. No matter how small, there’s still some effort the person took to communicate with you. Just remember, a person is giving you a chance to speak to them, for better or for worse, at least someone still wants to hear your voice, don’t take it for granted. A “hi” deserves to be answered, a smile maybe or even better, a reply “hi”, even if it’s a stranger, it’s much better than having no one at all to give you such kindness. If you ignore people, they will too ignore you. 

So don’t ignore people, and they will treat you back with kindness and compassion. Even if at first you’d make a complete fool out of yourself, treat everyone with love. Because just like you, everyone deserves to be loved, not to be ignored :D