I often find myself listening to the news and wondering how we ever got to where we are now. I hear what is going on in our country (and around the world) and I cannot fathom how it ever became acceptable. I won`t delve into my political opinions (but if you ask me I would love to share), who I vote for or if I’ll be donning a genitalia hat. My husband once asked me why I bother engaging in a discussion with people who will seemingly never change their mind, why I would bother sharing my opinion on social media or even in person when it comes to the controversial stuff. This is why.
Each and every one of us is responsible - however indirect it may be, for what becomes acceptable behavior in the future. Just like our parents are responsible for what is acceptable behavior right now (as a whole, not YOUR parents specifically or MY parents specifically - I don’t want to be misunderstood.) The future of our communities, our country, our world - is being decided right now and we all have a responsibility to be active in that. What I mean by that is, if there is a dissenting opinion - share yours (respectfully of course). Do not be afraid to have a discussion and let people hear it.
Whenever I am deciding if it is worth speaking up about any particular issue, I always go through this thought process in my head in a few split seconds:
“Oh geez, I do not agree with that.”
“Ugh. Maybe I should just ignore it.”
“Ugh. If I don`t say something, who will?”
“I don`t want (insert anyone: elected officials, teachers, peers, etc) to believe that is a commonly held point of view.”
“I need to do it. Ill try to be as understanding as possible in case I missed some big part of the issue.”
So my question from the beginning, how did we get to a place where what is going on became acceptable behavior? This is the only analogy I could think of to explain/describe this properly. There are two people in a room, one crazy and one reasonable, but the crazy one is doing all the talking. Apply that to society as a whole and I think that is the answer. I really believe there are more reasonable people than not, we just have to speak up!
if you can think of a better analogy, PLEASE, help a sister out and send it to me!