be mindful of who you share your problems with

Have you ever told a friend in confidence a disheartening problem, and on waking up the next morning boom!!! It’s out there, trending on every social media platform. What will be your initial reaction? There is a popular saying “a problem shared is a problem half solved,” but in this time and age, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. With the rapid and vast growth of social media, people don’t respect confidentiality anymore, they just want to go online and post the juiciest topic regardless of who they hurt in the process.

At some point in life, we all will need someone to confide in – to tell our deepest secret. But can we trust these people we talk to? Having someone who listens to all your problems doesn’t guarantee they will keep it a secret, few of them maybe there genuinely to help, but many are there to get a new status update – posting your problems on social media.

“A secret shared is never a secret” and “a problem shared may never get solved” with this in mind, a lot of us still make silly mistakes. If you have a secret, no need to share – take it to the grave with you. And if you have a problem, think twice before sharing. So many people we see today are very judgmental, they hear a problem and without properly analyzing the situation, they dive straight into judging. There so many factors to be considered before sharing a problem.

1.       Open mindedness  

Having an open mind is different from having a good understanding; an open mind is the willingness to accepting the un-explainable, while good understanding is being able to comprehend what is being conveyed to oneself. Not all problems can be disclosed to anyone; firstly, ask yourself is this person open enough to accept what I have to say? Understanding is a by-product of open-mindedness, you need to accept first then understand afterwards.

For someone who recently discovered being gay, imagine what would happen if he or she discloses their new discovery to a religious fanatic. Instead of putting the person through the path of discovery, he (religious fanatic) would first attack the spirituality of the person in question to be demonic, and give out a ‘movie-long’ sermon which will later result to low-self-esteem.

2.       Criticism

Looking for faults and wrong doing where there is supposed to be none. Criticism is one of the many reasons rape victims refuse to open up, going through such inhumane traumatic experience and the first person he or she turns to criticizes and ask irrelevant questions such as; why were you dressed seductively? Why were you on a skimpy dress? And all that which is totally not necessary – people share problems so as to get a possible solution. In a traumatic and delicate matter, whatever it maybe, criticism is a big NO.

3.       Professionalism

When going through some certain problems which requires a third party – someone who will listen and hopefully try to refer a solution. Who do we consult? Who can we trust well enough? There are professionals who are trained and equipped with the right mental capabilities to handle situation that are confidential no matter what it is. These Professionals include; therapists, doctors, psychologies and so on. Instead of just confiding in any random fellow, it’s best to consult a professional.