The risk of insult is the price of clarity

"The risk of insult is the price of clarity" is a one-line zinger my friend and mentor, Roy Williams, likes to say when crafting the "right" message.

There's a thing called the universal law of polarity.
It's like gravity. The truth is the truth with no exception.

Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravity and stated what goes up must eventually come down.

The law of polarity states that an equal number of people who hate your message will also love your message.

To say nothing insults no one.
To say nothing gets you no where.
To say something you believe, however controversial, will create haters and equally lovers.

Not everyone will love your message no matter how drenched in fact it will be.
Not everyone will hate it either.

It is the responsibility of the messenger to deliver impact, provoke thought and encourage action.
A poorly crafted message will be boring, ineffective and wasteful.

A message that gets "haters" has done its job.
A message is not intended to provoke, although it will happen.
When provocation is the intent, the messenger is just being an ass.
I know people like that.
I don't hang around with them.

When your message gets "haters" without an intent to provoke, it means you've done your job.
The law of polarity guarantees it.
There will be an equal number of people who will love it.

The funny thing about the law of polarity is that very few "lovers" actually say anything.

It's like customer complaints.
A study in 1997 showed that an unresolved customer complaint has the power of 25.
An upset customer will tell at least 25 people about a negative experience.
In that same study, an extremely happy customer has the power of less than 1.
They MIGHT tell one person how happy they are with the experience.

With social media that number has compounded to at least the power of 10.

As humans we breed off negative, gossip-worthy stories.

Negativity breeds attention.
Positivity does not.

Nonetheless the law of polarity exists.
Don't worry about the haters.
Although its hard not to.
If you're like me, it bothers you when people don't like what you said.

It shouldn't.
It means the message worked.

Should you address the haters?
It depends on your intent.
If you're being an ass, absolutely.
If you said something you really believe in, absolutely not.
You don't have to justify your beliefs to anyone but yourself and your maker.

There's another question to ponder.
Why would someone hate your message so much that they justify getting aggressive?

I hear my friend Michel whispering in my ear, "No one can get offended by something you say unless  you've placed doubt in their minds about their own beliefs".

That belief could stem not from your message but from your own persona.
The haters may appear because you're not who they thought YOU were.

That's on the reader, not the messenger...

I recently stood on a mountain and declared a belief.
Just like you, my beliefs aren't the same as everyone else's.
I don't hate friends who believe in something different just like I don't hate friends who believe in Allah instead of God.

Friends, who believe I'm stupid, can stop reading my thoughts and unfriend me on Facebook.
Friends, who think I'm an ass, don't really know me, and can unfriend me on Facebook.
Friends, who don't believe in the same things as I, can remain my friends, if they want to.

I write a blog not to shock the reader, but to practice my own writing through declaration of thought.
Some are poetic from a moment in time.
Some are educational from a lesson learned.
Most are random squirts of insight I discover.
All are well thought out.

I try to provide the reader with clarity from my perspective on the world.

If I insult you, I apologize. I don't mean to offend.

If I stir something inside of you, be aware of your emotions.

There's truth in there, somewhere...