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Sunday, August 20, 2017

Respect All

Happy Sunday, All.  The temperature is still hot like we want it, but summer is slowly winding down.  For the meteorologists in the audience, we all know that summer does not end until the Autumnal Equinox on September 23, 2017.  However, the rest of us have gotten used to it ending prematurely on Labor Day, thanks to our friends in academia.

A lot of hot-button issues have popped up recently.  Racism.  Free Speech.  The Civil War.  Our President.  There has been non-stop, ad nauseum coverage of these issues on all networks, channels and frequencies.

I say that's enough of that.  Perhaps finding ways to resolve these issues might be better read.

(1)  Respect All.

We are all human.  Flesh and blood.  Heart and soul.  Thoughts and feelings.  On some level, all of us matter.  This includes every faith and stripe.

This does not necessarily mean that we must all love each other, as set forth below.  It does, however, mean that there is never a reason to hate anyone else.  We're all somebody, and we've all had experiences that others haven't.  We must accept that no matter what.

(2) Befriend Few.

Unfortunately, people judge us by the five people we're around the most.  It might not be fair, but it happens because our attitude, behavior, and conduct is heavily influenced by the five people we're around the most.

Some of us seem to be friends with just about everyone.  In one sense, this is a good thing, because you know how to say things people like to hear and do things people like to see.  It's also not the best thing because not everyone likes to see and hear the same things.  And even if we respect each other, that doesn't mean that we should all be friends - once more, it doesn't mean we hate them, it just means that we can't really be friends with everyone, despite appearances to the contrary.  Outside of the undergraduate academic setting, popularity is a ruse.

Moreover, being friends with everyone cheapens the value of a friendship.  Keeping a circle small, on the other hand, means that you might look to only befriend those who you can trust, and who can make you even better than you already are.

(3) Love One.

Not everyone is a fan of marriage, or even monogamy.  When we're young, we're often encouraged to play the field, and when we're single we are encouraged to meet as many potential mates as possible.  But in the end, it's our natural inclination as human beings to find that one person with whom we can share everything about our lives.  Yes, there is such a thing as divorce, since marriages are not always meant to last.  But there is also such a thing as a soul mate.

Once you find that soul mate, you do it right.  You don't violate the trust that's there.  You don't let disagreements become high-conflict sporting events.  You don't put your needs over the other's.  You make it a 50/50 equal partnership.  Nobody is the scrub, and nobody is on the pedestal.  You take the respect you show everyone else, and the friendship you grant to a chosen few, and you make it exponential.  You show that one person what nobody else gets, and you keep on doing it.

(4) HATE NONE.

This just might be the most difficult thing to do.  Believe me, I know.  There are those who are not respectful.  There are bullies.  There are predators.  There are racists.  There are sexists.  There are those who think they're entitled when they aren't.  There are narcissists.  There are criminals.  There are pathological liars.  There are elitists.  There are people who try to minimize us, manipulate us, and fool us.

There are truly evil people in this world.  And when we hate them, we join them.

Unfortunately, we have triggers, and we have thresholds.  We still have that fight-or-flight reflex downloaded into our programming from the days of the Neanderthals.  We still feel compelled to fight fire with fire, and we still get a rush from our lizard brains when there seems to be a reason to engage in conflict.

We can acknowledge this.  And we can still, notwithstanding, control it.

We can romanticize "fighting fire with fire."  And we can also watch both sides burn to a crisp.
We can get our backs up, become militant, and smear everything the others stand for.  And we can also step back for a second, review our reactions, and realize that nothing we've done or said has made us any better than them.

We can also realize that we run the risk of letting them get under our skin when we react that way.  They want us to react.  They want to be the bad guy, because they think it actually makes them look good.  If we react in violence, we run the risk that they are better prepared for what we might use against them.  And even if we somehow overpower them with our kung-fu/UFC/smash-mouth moves we may have, we've really let them overpower us.  We have allowed them to dictate our responses to everything, permitted them to infect our well-being, and interfere with our logical reasoning.  We have accepted their way of might makes right, and we have allowed them to be our masters in that regard.

Contrary to popular opinion, we are a thousand times better off when we don't let that happen.  It's far better than you might think.

We may feel that American society is at a crossroads.  If that's true, there's actually a pretty good path to take instead of the others.

I EXIST.  I MATTER.  I BELONG.  I DESERVE.

I AM BOLD.  I AM BULLETPROOF.

I AM EMOTIONALLY MATURE.

Feel free to react, comment, follow, or re-Tweet, within the bounds of respect.

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