Dehumanization our community
There's an awful lot we share on these blogs. Our sorrows, our challenges, our struggles. And when we are fortunate, we also get to share our good luck and love, our gifts, our happiness. We have lived together, laughed together and grieved together.
Over the years, we've offered up ourselves on here and for the most part there has been an incredible amount of respect and compassion, generosity and understanding. We have counted on each other, borrowed from each other, asked each other for help, offered and given much.
Things are very tough for many of us. That struggle may be financial, it may be medical, it may be psychological or emotional. It may be any combination or even all of them. It may not be the constant conversation. Frankly, I hope it isn't because I truly hope that we can all see a little brightness and a little joy despite our trials.
This conversation is about the appropriateness and respect given to what we share here. Its about the compassion and awareness to each others lives and our individual situations. Its about a generosity of spirit and a perspective greater than our own lives and reality. We all need a little more of these things. And when someone is ignoring these and trampling over them, acting with self-absorption and disrespecting those very real challenges, the response of silence speaks volumes. In fact, it can be quite deafening.
But when that behavior continues, as it so often does, sometimes you must make the all important decision to hold up the mirror to the behavior and then protect yourself.
Yesterday, someone I've known for year needed to see in that mirror. And she refused to see herself and instead made excuses. And I did what I had to do to protect myself because I am hurt. And I am furious. And I am absolutely horrified that my life, my boundaries and my situation have been intruded upon in such a selfish, self-absorbed manner.
At the end of the day, it is not that I am mad at her. Because I am not. I am frustrated that we have come to this level of obliviousness. We have become things to each other. We have become an ends to a mean. Instead of a treasured resource, we are a material source. If you want something from me, it begins and ends with me - my spirit and soul, my mind and my energy. And should you ask for my assistance, be prepared to answer how I, as a resource, can do that!
So here I make my stand. No more dehumanizing. Human, I stand.
Over the years, we've offered up ourselves on here and for the most part there has been an incredible amount of respect and compassion, generosity and understanding. We have counted on each other, borrowed from each other, asked each other for help, offered and given much.
Things are very tough for many of us. That struggle may be financial, it may be medical, it may be psychological or emotional. It may be any combination or even all of them. It may not be the constant conversation. Frankly, I hope it isn't because I truly hope that we can all see a little brightness and a little joy despite our trials.
This conversation is about the appropriateness and respect given to what we share here. Its about the compassion and awareness to each others lives and our individual situations. Its about a generosity of spirit and a perspective greater than our own lives and reality. We all need a little more of these things. And when someone is ignoring these and trampling over them, acting with self-absorption and disrespecting those very real challenges, the response of silence speaks volumes. In fact, it can be quite deafening.
But when that behavior continues, as it so often does, sometimes you must make the all important decision to hold up the mirror to the behavior and then protect yourself.
Yesterday, someone I've known for year needed to see in that mirror. And she refused to see herself and instead made excuses. And I did what I had to do to protect myself because I am hurt. And I am furious. And I am absolutely horrified that my life, my boundaries and my situation have been intruded upon in such a selfish, self-absorbed manner.
At the end of the day, it is not that I am mad at her. Because I am not. I am frustrated that we have come to this level of obliviousness. We have become things to each other. We have become an ends to a mean. Instead of a treasured resource, we are a material source. If you want something from me, it begins and ends with me - my spirit and soul, my mind and my energy. And should you ask for my assistance, be prepared to answer how I, as a resource, can do that!
So here I make my stand. No more dehumanizing. Human, I stand.