Extremists and Alarmists and Fence Sitters

I am so blessed to have a lot of friends. Some lived in sin, gay, liberal, atheists. If you don't know me I am not gay, did not live in sin, do not consider myself liberal most of the time and I am not an atheist or agnostic or secular or whatever word makes you feel identified religiously or non-religiously.

I am trying to make a point. I love my friends equally. I don't always like what they do and I might make different decisions than they do or have past and present. I am sure they feel the same way about me and think I am insane sometimes and I probably am. I respect and admire all of my friends uniqueness. I would be bored if they were exactly like me.

And I can honestly say, I don't have a single friend who is exactly like me. I cannot believe that anyone else does either. And if you think you do, you need to broaden your horizons some.

My friends know what I think. Know I say things some times that I probably shouldn't. But they know with me, what you see if what you get. And in return I respect them in the same way. I even like to joke about how we are different or tease them about their perspective on something. That is what makes life fun and that is what I value in an individual.

However, truth be told, we are not going to all get along. There are two types of personality traits that I find hard to swallow. Alarmists, extremists and fence sitters.

Lets start with alarmists. These are the types that tell you your children are going to not be as smart or going to be obese because you gave them formula and to top it off you fed them from a bottle full of BPA. What were you thinking? Or they tell you that your shampoo is going to cause you to get cancer. The vaccines your giving your children are going to suck out their brain cells. The government is putting a chip in the H1N1 vaccine to keep track of us all by GPS.

You know the people that are constantly sounding the fire alarm but there is no fire. Yes it may be dry out or it could even be lightening but what is the probability that it is actually going to strike your house or that your dry pine straw will automatically combust? And isn't there ALWAYS a danger of fire. Theoretically what is the chance of me ever experiencing one?

And then you have the extremists. Extremist have causes. There causes are all they can talk about. They talk about it so much they turn everyone off to their cause, even those sometimes that participate or found their cause. Extremist embarrass me when they are being extreme about something that I am passionate about. Extremist embarrass everyone really and they just don't get it. They never send their cause forward, only backward.

That leads to the fence sitter. There are several types of fence sitters but I have to say fence sitters are the ones I despise the most. I would rather live with an extremist or an alarmist than a fence sitter because at least they have an opinion.

There is the fence sitter who just has no opinion. Never says anything negative or positive. They think they are being smart. Guess what? You are boring.

There is the fence sitter who listens to the right of the fence and the left of the fence. Sometimes they venture off the fence and sit in the greenest of grass with those there and say hey I am like you. Then the very next day you look across and they are sitting on the brown dried up grass and saying hey I am like you and I agree with you. They talk out of both sides of their mouths. You never know where they stand. They are really all over the place. Yet they pretend like they are sitting on the fence. Really they are playing both sides. Neither side ever respects them because no one really knows where they stand or what they are for or against. And when you say one thing and then do another, you just come out as a liar when you are probably just too unintelligent to know the difference.

But there is a far worse fence sitter. There is a fence sitter who sits and takes notes. They really belong to one side of the fence or the other but they don't want you to know which side. So they take notes and pretend to be on both sides. Then when you are not looking they go to their side of the fence and tell everyone what the other side is thinking. That side loves to hear what you have to say but don't ever expect them to trust you either. And the other side is only fooled for so long before they find out about you as well. No one likes a mole....ever.

You might not like where I am going but you sure know where I stand,