Opposing Views --- 123

In this day and age, everyone has an opposing view on everything. Whether that be in politics, food preferences, car choices, or even how you make your cereal, everyone will not always agree with you on a certain issue. However, it is how we deal with these opposing views that can make or break it for many. For some, having opposing feelings isn’t really a big deal and they can just let it go and move about in their life, while for others they can not and they would either push back harshly on anyone who has an opposing view or either cut them out of their lives. Today, I am going to talk about a time where due to opposing views, I lost a friend and how that lesson helped me in the workforce til this day.

This story takes place back in 2016, during the presidential election at that time. I was close friends with a guy who I had known for almost my whole life. We went to the same middle school as well as high school and even up to college. We have always known each other and we were almost like brothers. However, things began to change when the 2016 Presidential election came up. I began to notice that my friend began supporting the candidate that I didn’t really like. He would go on about how that candidate would be good for our country and so on and so on. I supported the other candidate and like many at the time, I made my opinion open. That is when things really began to change between me and my friend. We began to get into heated arguments about each candidate to the point where it soon became shouting matches. At the time, this surprised me. Here was my friend who I have known for a long time and now he was slowly becoming someone that I did not recognize anymore. All of a sudden, our opposing views began to really take over. As the election came closer and closer, the arguments got more heated, to the point where I decided for my health that it probably would be best not to talk to him till after the election. Then finally, election day arrived. As the results of the election slowly began to come in, it was getting pretty obvious that the candidate that I liked was not going to win and sure enough, they didn’t. At that time, like many people in the country, I was pretty emotional about the results of the election. And like many, I expressed that online and of course I got push back from many people from the other side, who were pretty much happy that their candidate had won the election. However, as I read the comments and replies, there was one name that was not there. It was my friend. Initially, I thought that he was probably sleeping or not online at the time. However, over the next few days, I noticed that I was no longer  on his friend’s list at all. I checked all other social media and it was in fact true that he had indeed taken me off social media and had cut me off. I would later found out that he cut me off just because of my political views and just like that, a disagreement over politics cost me a friendship.

Looking back on it, I have to admit that it was silly but probably it’s for the best. I learned from it, in which to always prepare for the unexpected and to continue to move forward. The same can be said about working. You will encounter moments where you will disagree with someone and that could lead to some unexpected consequence but you must learn that you can move forward and that to never change in your belief of something, no matter what others may tell you otherwise.