Can't the Golden Rule Just Guide Humanity? Seriously????

I am way too sensitive, a condition of which I am well aware.


I am flawed in a hundred different ways.  I am disorganized.  I'm cranky.  I don't do well without set, drop-dead due dates.  I am goofy when I should sometimes be serious.  My wardrobe is pretty pathetic.  My eyebrows need to be done.  My car might just be radioactive.  I swear like a sailor.


You probably get the idea.


But I am never cruel.


I have the typical human knee-jerk reaction of being pissed off when, for example: 


* Certain ex-husbands who shall remain nameless set up a special outing with the daughter they haven't seen in weeks, ask their ex-wives to spend an additional hour and a half in a car driving said daughter there, then don't show up or even answer the phone, text messages, or e-mails, forcing the ex-wife to try to explain to the sobbing daughter why exactly it's wrong to say that Daddy's a bad person.  Oh, this is particularly egregious when the ex-husband involved owes the ex-wife in question $500.  Just saying ...


* People drag me into drama that does not concern me.  I do not get involved in drama.  I hate drama.  I went on the "Oh, let's make fun of people, isn't it a good time?" trip, the "Let's pick apart every little thing that person does because my friend doesn't like her" vacation for awhile last year, and you know what?  It makes you feel like crap inside after awhile.  I'm out of that, totally out of that.  I made an active choice to remove myself from the set of Mean Girls, and getting pulled back into it when I didn't do a freaking thing is frustrating.


* When your ability to do your job effectively is called into question by fools who have no idea how to be an English teacher.  I once had someone say to me, "All that kids in your class do is read, write, and have discussions."  I was royally pissed off for about thirty seconds ... then I started laughing because, damn, they'd just paid me a hell of a compliment.  But sometimes it's hard to suck up the crap people sling around.  I have never once had my integrity as a teacher questioned by a person whose opinion meant anything to me.  It's easy, though, to say, "Consider the source" and something else again to do it.


Which brings me back to the title of the post.


Let anyone who's never committed a sin throw stones at glass houses (how's that for combining ;-)?), and I guarantee you that ... well, it'd be quiet.


Look, we all suck on some level, in some verb tense.  I used to suck, sucked, will strive to never again suck, but ...


Well, you get it, I'm sure.


Shut the heck up, get over yourself and your stupid childish  mentality, and focus on you.  Look in the mirror, think about what role you play in any of the drama you're so worked up about, and own what belongs to you.


I think you might be surprised, seriously.


If every person in the world could just stop and think about the ramifications of their own misbehavior, to presume positive intentions in others, and to keep their mouths shut if it doesn't involve saying something nice or adopting a "live and let live" policy, the world would be an infinitely better place.


Look, I know I'm living in a world of rainbows and dancing fairies and hobbits.  Just because I make a concerted effort to treat others well or at least to give them common courtesy doesn't mean that others can or will or maybe even should.


But it also drudges up the cynical crystals still floating inside of myself, and the idea of those joining together and changing me because some people are rude, inconsiderate, bullying, lying, hypocritical ... "stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerfherder" ...


Just be good to each other ... it's not that freaking hard!


**Okay, rant over ... my apologies :-)**

Does the Golden Rule Mean Nothing?

I am in kind of a funk at the moment, a definite change from my usual Pollyanna-like existence.

I've been noticing a lot, both in my personal life and in the world around me, that people have a tendency to treat others like crap. It's starting to really get to me, to be perfectly honest with you.

I've gotten to the point as a person, however, where I can look at what is annoying me about other people and ask if I am part of the problem or part of the solution. In other words, is what pissing me off about other people something that I do myself, making me an unintentional hypocrite?

I broke this down to the so-called "Golden Rule"--in other words, treat other people the way you would like to be treated.

If everyone lived this way, if each person on the planet made a conscious effort to extend to others the courtesies that they themselves expect, the world would be a far more pleasant place.

So I asked myself, "How do you treat people?"

In general, I think that I do offer everybody kindness, respect, humor, a willingness to work hard, a ready smile, and a helping hand. At least, that is my perception.

That being said, I am also aware that I am not one to forgive and forget. If a person burns me enough times (and in many cases, there has been an awful lot of burning that's gone on before I finally gave up ... I'm kind of a sucker), I will eventually lose any sort of respect or regard for that person.

But does that change the way I treat them?

Yes and no.

I cannot think of the last time I did something malicious to someone, an action intended purely to cause pain, discomfort, or humiliation. It's just not in my nature, I don't think.

But in terms of going out on a limb for someone that's hurt me or someone close to me or even someone I've never met? As far as I'm concerned, the bridge is broken. I would never initiate the burning of a bridge, wouldn't fan its flames or instigate destruction of any sort, but I've been forced--through observing and witnessing and screaming in agony from hurt and betrayal--to accept that walking away (literally when possible and metaphorically when it's not) is sometimes the only thing you can do.

And that makes me immeasurably sad.

I guess the bottom line is that I do not understand human nature. There seems to be a common need to use the misfortune of others to make yourself feel better, even if you're not the one to instigate said misfortune.

Is it because focusing on the tragedies and tribulations of others allows you to put your own pain and shortcomings and weaknesses and fears into some kind of perspective? I think so.

I love hearing gossip, for instance. Celebrity gossip, workplace gossip, the drama that goes on among my students, and so on ... I enjoy hearing about it. I like to know the dirt. However, I do not myself gossip; I'm not one who'll call up a hundred people and say, "Oh my God, you know what I just heard about Joe Jones?"

I guess I'm rambling, but writing makes me feel better even if I don't come to any sort of conclusion that's going to make a difference in the great scheme of things.

I'd love to know your thoughts on this one, though.

Do you treat other people the way you'd like to be treated? Do you think the concept of everybody taking on this challenge would make the world a better place?

And is that even possible?

What Difference do YOU Make?

Maybe it's the holiday season, but there seems to be a recent trend toward focusing on the positive differences that we as people make. I think this is a great thing, natch, but it's harder to do than you'd think, scary as that is.

One of my internet connections, Erinn, has started a blog focusing on being nice to strangers, and it's really very interestng. Honestly, I'm pretty much in awe of her for the amazing and original ideas she's come up with and her reactions to how they go over. Very thought-provoking.

What's kind of ironic is that, completely unintentionally, the weekly paper topic I gave my students last week was, "What Difference do YOU Make?" It seemed like a good thing to get them thinking about, but it combined with Erinn's blog experiment really got me thinking instead (amazing how that happens sometimes :)).

What occurred to me is how difficult it is to make a concerted effort to be nice ... and that kind of bothered me about myself. Part of me was like, "Hey, you get a pass, you teach high school students every day, there's no question that you make a difference," but I honestly felt like that's kind of a cop-out. It might be true, but it's still a cop-out. After all, I am paid to make a difference to my students--isn't there more I should do in reality?

So in that vein, I thought I found a golden opportunity when I saw a woman with a cane while at Rite Aid getting poster board and markers for Addie's Biology project. I should probably mention that it's snowing like nobody's business, the plow trucks aren't really out in full force, and the driving is horrible ... and the floor of Rite Aid was so wet and slippery that it brought ice skates to mind. Anyway, I pretty much stalked this poor woman on my quest to help her.

I don't know what I was thinking, just that maybe she'd need help carrying things or something ... epic fail, as Addie would say. I ended up dropping everything I was carrying and nearly knocking her over with my klutziness. So I went to grab some stuff in the grocery section, and we met again at the cash register ... at which point she looked at me, looked at the cashier, and said, "I think I'll let this lady go ahead of me."

Wow. I felt like a complete idiot. She was very polite about it, but I was clearly rebuffed. And then I got all pissed off at myself for having the mindset that a woman would need help just because she had a cane, and ...

Clearly I'm just not good at making a difference in reality. This is something I will be working harder on. It's something I hope all of you will think about, since I think the world would be so much more beautiful if everyone gave just a little bit more thought to others.

I'd love to hear from you, though--what difference do YOU make? I'm curious to see if the implementation of a simple and beautiful idea is as difficult for others as it is for me : )

The Pratfalls of Human Nature

I'm a simple person, really. I just wish I could understand human nature even as I live and breathe as part of the human race.

I am so overwhelmed with unkindness and sneakiness and selfishness and a number of other words ending in -ness. These are all things that I try desperately not to be, and I cannot for the life of me understand how these things are a way of life to so many people. Why in the world would you actively WANT to be an asshole?

I guess maybe I'm not such a simple person. My life philosophy is to do everything I can to help other people, to give all of myself. I get frustrated, ridiculously so, when people don't hold themselves to the same standard. Somewhere along the line, either from my parents, in Girl Scouts (hey, come on, I was a Brownie for one year), or some other location that escapes me at the moment, I learned something called the golden rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated.

That's how I try to live my life. Do I always succeed? Nope, although I can live with what I do accomplish under that dictum. I seem to do at least as well as most people and obviously far better than some.

I mess up all the time, and I really am okay with that. After all, the bigger your mistake, the more you learn from it, at least if you're someone that takes things to heart the way I do. I learn an awful lot every day : )

I don't know how to live in a world where there are people who espouse a philosophy that cries out the polar opposite.

I guess all I can do is keep on trucking, though. I can only be the best person I can be. I can honestly say that I've learned and grown from all my mistakes, the huge ones in the past and the unknown of the future.

I just wish that human nature was more forthcoming.