Human weakness

Why do we hurt those who are special to us? In fact, why do we hurt anyone at all?  It seems to me, anyone is open to scorn, verbal abuse, mental and psychological abuse, disrespect, shade …call it whatever you want.  It all boils down to just one sad word we continually dole out to one another …abuse.

Really, this abuse has become more mainstream and acceptable than ever before.  With the advent of the inter webs, poor behavior of any kind seems to be perfectly reasonable.  We, as a wonderfully flawed species have fast tracked treating one another worse than garbage.  Abuse of every imaginable kind is readily available for all the world to see.  Often times this abhorrent behavior is seen in wonderful HD video, with onlookers smiling, pointing, laughing and egging on the further degradation of our fellow man.  Very few people are willing to step in and say STOP!

There are without a doubt an innumerable number of culprits to try and pin this on.  I, however think it all boils down to good old fashioned weakness …human weakness.  Sure, anyone can use any argument they wish about this.  Nature vs. nature, parental upbringing, drugs, alcohol, mob rule.  But, honestly treating people like crap is a choice plain and simple.  Some will argue this choice is a difficult one and others will say it’s really a simple choice.  Treating one another with respect and dignity is not difficult.  In a different life and career I saw, on a daily basis people who continually treated their fellow man with nothing but scorn and hatred.  They had every opportunity to change their behavior but some reveled in seeing others suffer.  Choice my friends, choice.

On a personal level, I’m certainly not immune to acting like an absolute ass. Many times, no matter how aware I’m trying to be about how I treat others, I somehow allow my buttons to be pushed to the point where I lash out.  I’m slowly learning to take a deep breath and show a shred of patience.  It’s a struggle for sure but as I said before, it’s not really that hard either.  It’s a choice.  I can either allow myself to lash out and deeply regret my behavior or I can choose to change the way I act and react to those around me.  Either way, I’m in control.  My happiness and the happiness of those around me are impacted, plain and simple.

I’m going to go a bit political here and if anyone is offended, please understand it’s not intentional.  As I said previously, with the advent of the inter webs we have instant access to as much deviant, poor behavior as we can stomach.  In a very real and visible manner this treatment of our fellow man as afterthoughts has made poor behavior an every day occurrence.  It has become so common place that it’s become acceptable.  Well, it’s not acceptable and it never should be.  Here it comes….It certainly does not help when our very own president displays the type of behavior that would certainly get him fired from any other job in the country.  He calls people names, he calls people stupid, weak, no good and people think it’s funny.  Most of his demeaning behavior is done via his twitter feed.  However he has on many occasions eschewed honorable presidential norms and very openly abused people at his “Nuremberg” type rallies.  And, without exception, his supporters goose step right along with the mob, clapping, cheering, smiling and raising their fists.  His abuse of his fellow man has become so normal, so okay that many people actually look forward to whatever will come next. The truly horrible thing to remember about such open, in your face abuse of people is that it is now being mirrored world wide.  Why am I using our president as an example?  Well, even though he may not realize it or even care, he plays a major role in how socially acceptable some behavior becomes.  It is a truly sad commentary of just how far society has fallen down the slippery slope that our American president has become a barometer for poor and deviant behavior.  I feel that it’s only going to get worse.  I’d love to be hopeful about it all but I sadly feel we’ve got a lot longer to fall before things turn around. 

I’m guess I’ve just reached a level of sadness about the state of affairs on this big ball of dirt and water we call earth.  We can be so much better than we are, we’ve done it before.  I’m going to start by continuing to change my behavior.  I’m going to take a deep breath, go for a walk and remember how I’d like to be treated is probably the same as everyone else.

Lessons learned:

1. Be kind, it’s easy.
2. Take a deep breath, take a walk.
3. Help others, we learned all this as children.