I turn on the news to another mass shooting, excuse me, mass shootings. I go online to see an announcement from the Howard County health department about the increase in Covid cases on the Nextdoor site and I see people getting nasty about people who chose to wear a mask or not wear a mask or condemning someone for their belief in this or that. It’s endless. It’s hard to avoid.
I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to walk outside my door without my loaded shotgun in hand when I see and feel such hate growing each day. I’ve run into it in my neighborhood, I run into it when I get in the car and drive someplace, you see it in the stores with people yelling at each other or being disrespectful to people in the service business.
I used to think the dangerous people were the ones who didn’t respect the life of another person and while that is true, there are others who are dangerous also. Because everyone seems to be so rooted in their personal beliefs that we don’t respect or listen to each other. I think I’ll refer to this era as the dismissive decade. We have dismissed each other and once we find we differ in opinion the word enemy is assigned.
You can’t even go to a ballgame without a fight breaking out. And with all these bad lessons in front of our children, I worry about what the next generation of hate will bring.
Sometimes it doesn’t even take an encounter or opinion being shared. Just because a person is slightly different in skin pigmentation or maybe a different ethnic group is all that is needed to be classified as the enemy.
It can be people running businesses gouging on prices or unsafe business practices or abusing their workers. Which is another type of hate for your fellow man.
I’m sick of it. I try to make things better but it keeps going the wrong way. And as more big decisions about this country’s direction confront us, and more people in the streets it’s only a matter of time it seems till there are some really massive conflicts.
I’m going to do my best to be kind, to listen to opinions without condemning people for having a different one than mine. I’m going to try to help people in need. I’m going to support the people in our military, police, and fire services. I’m not going to assail the medical profession because it’s not an exact science and most do the best they can.
For we face much tougher times ahead and if we are falling apart now, our future is somewhat bleak unless we can pull and work together on making things better together and exercising some give and not all take.
Random Thoughts of the Day
- Being sick over a weekend is not going to leave me refreshed to start a new work week.
- I take lots of pictures so I can have a photographic memory.
- Food is far less satisfying when you can’t taste it.
- I’m hoping for a good night’s sleep for a change of pace.
- I hope my daughter-in-law had the most wonderful day today.
