What the Hell Is Wrong With People?

There is something seriously wrong with people when they get angry - filled with RAGE - when someone else believes differently, acts differently, celebrates differently, lives differently than they do.  Seriously.  If someone else's actions have no real impact on you - they aren't stopping you from life, liberty, or your pursuit of happiness - and you feel anger toward them you need to seek professional help.  No human being should be so angry at the world that differences cause them to react in anger.  It is NOT normal for you to feel enraged because someone isn't a Christian.  It is not normal to feel enraged because someone is gay.  It is NOT normal for you to feel enraged because someone doesn't celebrate Christmas, either at all or what you deem as the 'right way' (your way).  It's NOT normal for you to be so filled with hate and anger that you won't even speak to a person who has a different color of skin,  wears an item of clothing you wouldn't, or is holding hands with a person of the same sex, etc.  When anger and hate fill your heart so that anyone, anywhere, anytime that is DIFFERENT than you makes your blood boil, you see red, or you envision committing a violent act against them......YOU have the PROBLEM:  an emotional, mental, spiritual crisis that should have YOU seeking guidance, counseling .....maybe even medication.  THAT is the conversation we should be having in this country. 

WHY are so many Americans SO angry and filled with SO much hate? 

There is a better than average  chance that some of the answers lay in the hubris of the American people.  This hubris can be seen in those who have worked so hard to have what they have and be who they are that they truly believe their choices are the RIGHT ones, since it took SO much for them to achieve what they have, and any difference or deviation strikes at the heart of their very precarious sense of self.  Furthermore, we have an over inflated sense of self importance, pride, and entitlement that far exceeds our scope of being.   If someone acts and believe the way they do - which causes them to be filled with hate for anyone - based on their religious ideology than they either don't understand their religion as well as they should or they are engaged in a cult.

This isn't to say that we don't have real problems in our country.  We do.  We are well past the time of needing real solutions.  But even our politicians and 'leaders' (who we have elected or allowed to be in leadership roles) spout rhetoric that either appeases the hubris of Americans or (and this is worse) ignites the rage that Americans feel toward other groups of peoples, ideas, beliefs, etc.  Neither of those do a goddamn thing in helping solve the issues we face within our own borders, let alone the ills of the world.

It seems so trite, too simplistic; but Gandhi had it right.  Be the change you want to see in the world. If you want to see peace in our country, kindness, opportunity, the end of hunger and strife then check your six.  What are YOU doing to make such things happen?  Even if it just means figuring out why you are so angry and hateful and fixing that.  If you are raging against all the 'differences' and treating 'others' as if they are, at a minimum, somehow less than you or that they are, at a maximum, deserving of violent attack, you **are** part of the problem, not the solution.  What we need in this country is for people to stop pointing their finger in blame outward and instead look inward to figure out how we can fix ourselves, first.  How do we stop being this cocky, arrogant, snobbish, hate-filled, country we have turned into? 

It may be a small, even tiny, step but it would be a beginning: Change your mindset, change the world.  Find peace for yourself and you'll be more inclined to show peace to others.  Be kind and compassionate and watch that spread instead of anger and hate.

And no, this isn't some sort of 'far-left' liberal ideology I'm talking about.  We do have serious problems that require real solutions and some of those solutions require us to defend ourselves, through policy/military action, against enemies foreign and domestic.  We do need to find a way to protect our citizens, our children, that provides the greatest amount of safety with the least amount of infringement on rights.  We do need to find solutions to A LOT of very serious, very immediate and long-reaching issues.  But, if we can't at least start trying to figure that stuff out from a place of real concern for one another, a place of decency toward all human life, a place of respect and reciprocity, no solution one side or the other creates will work.  We will continue to be doomed to the inevitable fate we face now.......mutually assured destruction.

~Mari B.