Hey All - Hope you're enjoying your weekend!
It's becoming old news pretty fast, but I needed to say something about this latest school shooting.
For the last several weeks, as the country has moved on from the school shooting in Lakeland, Florida, we've had a lot of issues come up on the news. Second Amendment vs. Gun Control. Better mental health care. Whose fault it was. Whose fault it wasn't. And we've seen this great group of kids from that high school - the Most Likely To Succeed types - take center stage and challenge Washington and Tallahassee to do better jobs.
But I've seen a different issue and started running with it, because I think it comes before the others:
Did anyone ever just say hi to this kid?
Did Emma Gonzalez ever ask Nikolas Cruz if he was having a bad day? Did she ever sit with him at lunch?
Did David Hogg ever invite him to play at recess? Did he ever contact the school psychologist out of concern that Nikolas was in a bad way?
These are straight, unloaded questions. I'm not suggesting that these students did anything wrong. Instead, I'm asking if they had ever tried to show Nikolas that he wasn't really alone.
They can persist in finding fault with the NRA and the Broward County Sheriff's office. Whenever something goes wrong, it's perfectly natural to demand to know who was responsible. But it might also be enlightening to review the choices we've made ourselves.
Nobody has said whether or not Nikolas Cruz was bullied. From the sound of it, he might have been a real terror if he was barred from wearing a backpack on campus, and then expelled. That might have made the thought of speaking to him daunting - kind of like Kevin speaking to that weird old man in "Home Alone" - but if he had know that someone was at least willing to treat him like a human being, he might not have been so willing to destroy other human beings.
Yes, there is the possibility that someone tried this and it didn't work. Maybe Cruz might have thought people approaching him were phony and fake, or looking to manipulate him. Kids can be pretty good at that. But if nobody enlightens us on that, we'll never know.
And, of course, I'm not saying that anyone should have pretended to be his friend when there was no friendship. Friendship is a precious thing that should only be granted to a select few. Respect, however, is to be evenly distributed to all.
With all of these issues that have propped up, I hope the youth of today and tomorrow will consider these events in their future dealings with their troubled peers. It's for damn sure that throwing shade, bullying, snarking, and dissing isn't helping anyone. And this blaming and shaming in the media in't much better.
RESPECT ALL
BEFRIEND FEW
LOVE ONE
HATE NONE
I EXIST.
I MATTER.
I BELONG.
I DESERVE.
EMOTIONAL MATURITY
runninglaw@gmail.com
This blog is meant for the advancement, redemption, and self actualization of those who have not been taught how to properly manage their emotions, and have suffered due to this lack of information. While we in no way defend those who have harmed us, we also do not make ourselves triggered and manipulated by people and things we cannot control. Through the application of the Eight Pillars, we can move forward and become the strong, unflappable, respectable people we were meant to be.
