You only have so much energy. Spend it on people and goals, not on proving a stranger wrong.

Attention is finite in a way that is easy to forget, because spending it does not feel like spending. An argument with someone you will never meet takes real hours and leaves nothing behind, and the satisfaction of being right evaporates before the day ends. The people and projects that needed those hours never announce that they missed you.

Notice the next time you are composing a reply to a stranger and close the tab instead. Put the same ten minutes toward one person who actually knows you, and see which one you remember on Friday.