“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire;

he breaks out against all judgment.

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,

but only in expressing his own opinion.”

~Proverbs 18.1-2

I read these words day before yesterday in my Daily Encounter with God…and it has obsessed me.

Meditate on these God-inspired words of wisdom alongside all the social media “hot takes” you read from all the ‘influencer’ wannabes.

Everybody who wants one has a platform nowadays—a potentially world-wide platform. Everyone (almost) aspires to go viral.

But I choose to live by the maxim expressed in the two verses previous to these, Proverbs 17.27-28:

“Whoever restrains his words has knowledge,

and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;

when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.”

[Fooled you, didn’t I? ]

Do I have ‘hot takes’? Yes, all the time. As I frequently say: I think all the time. I think something about everything. But I never think everybody ought to hear and know what I’m thinking. And nobody is interested in hearing and knowing what I think about everything. And especially my impulsive, knee-jerk venting to everything I hear, see, or read in the chaotic ‘spin-cycle’ of our current public discourse.

I intentionally practice restraining myself from being a ‘first responder.’ Again, later on in the same Proverbs 18, verse 17:

“The one who states his case first seems right,

until the other comes and examines him.”

Or, verse 13:

“If one gives an answer before he hears,

it is his folly and shame.”

Meditate on those, too. We rarely get the whole, big picture of any event or issue—and almost always a carefully-curated sliver of the information available…and a carefully-crafted narrative for you to believe and repeat.

So I just try to keep my face ‘egg-free’ by waiting, listening, gathering, and weighing the whole issue as best I can before offering any take—if any take of mine is profitable, to begin with. [And we haven’t yet even mentioned the benefit of holding your immediate fire so as to help preserve the true influence that comes with a reputation for credibility.]

Wait…did I just do a ‘hot take’?