The Elephant In The Room...

Before I get started with this blog, I just want to let you know that I will try to watch what I say in the means of pointing the finger. I will not be using "I, me, or you" in this post, unless I am giving a personal example from my life, or an example from what I heard or saw from a friend.  What I have to say deals with an issue that needs to be addressed... Everyone of us has missed the boat, but I will show you where we did in my humble opinion. This is my blog, and I promise to try to not place blame, or throw any wood into the fire. I will not get into any political agenda, I will not get into religion, nor will I get into blaming anyone, or any situation. I will be breaking it down as real as I can, without it getting to be something where its just another opinionated person giving their 2 cents. With that said, lets get started

First off, my heartfelt condolences, and prayers goes out to the parents, of the 20 children that was murdered earlier today. I can never imagine a day like today if I was a parent, and I can't begin to try to console anyone who was directly affected. The loss of innocence, and the fear that was implemented by someone who was not well, did more damage that we will ever know. So, again, I pray for peace for the parents, and the loved ones of all the victims today. Such a sad day... Now to the meat of it all...

Today was a day that we never have wanted to witness, Just like Columbine, and the events in Aurora, CO, and Virginia Tech to name a few, its just another day where we like to give our opinions about the bad. We never want to see the lead up to any situation. A lot of people want to blame the events today on the "lack of gun control," or the "fact that someone sick got a hold of the weapons." And we also want to go as far to blame God for such evil, which is unfair to Him... But in all the fear and the anger, and the want to hold our kids more, we neglect to blame the people responsible for events like what happened this morning... And the ones to blame is US!!! Yes. Us! You, me, them, EVERYONE! We are all to blame for the events that happened today. Everyday, we like to keep our worlds as shut in and keep as many people out as humanly possible. We sit on the bus or train listening to our ipods, or pull up our itunes, on our ipads, and answer our iphones to talk to the people we know, or avoid talking to the person we don't, all the while we are missing the person right in front of us, or right beside us to just see how they are doing. I believe days like today could have been avoided if it was not for the lack of HUMAN INTERACTION. We have allowed technology to take away from us the means of being there for one another. If someone would have just talked to the young man, or just tried to be there, that wasn't family, I believe that we would be sitting here talking about a totally different subject. But because of what happened today, here we are, and I am touching the root of the TRUE problem with humanity. Everyone is quick to ask "Whats going on with this world?!" Well, I have the answer... It is the fact that we, as one human race, lack the balls to just go out of our comfort zone... we religiously go about our daily routines, in which we have it down to a damn near exact science. 6:30 wake up. 7:15 shower. 7:45 bagel and coffee: 8:15 SPEED TO GET TO THE HIGHWAY. 9:24 call boss tell him I'll be late for work. 9:45 finally show up... 1:45 lunch. 5:45 finally leaving 7:10 home... And in that time, how many people have we talked to that isn't in the office? How many bums or homeless guys have we passed, and lied to saying that we don't have a dime on us? How many times have we talked about, or added to the gossip of someone we don't even know? How many people that we say we will be there for, were we never to be found by them? The point is: We have all conditioned ourselves to follow some sort of weird protocol to protect ourselves. We are ALWAYS looking out for ourselves. We like to say things like "I stay on my grind!" or "Steadily hustlin to make this money!" And we expect for everyone to "like" our feelings for the moment... We have worked our way to making sure that WE look out for our individual selves... We encourage our kids not to talk to strangers (which is not a bad thing), and pull them back when a man or woman who may appear unsightly. When we walk down the street now a days, instead of looking ahead, we look down. If a person happens to smile at us, we just keep our heads down and keep moving... We have all conditioned ourselves to fear any and everything that we do not know.

As I said before, we have allowed technology to kill human interaction... When was the last time we made a call to a loved one, and not sent a text? When was the last time, we did not get on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network site? We like to post about what we are doing, and brag to everyone who is missing out on the "good time" that is being had currently. We also LOVE to post pictures of sayings that someone else came up with, and "agree" with what is said, by "sharing" and "liking" said bullshit saying...  Technology is taking us all away from the things that use to matter like getting to know our neighbors, or introducing ourselves to a stranger. We are so afraid to allow our circles to open up, that we don't even want to sit in the chair directly next to the person in the chair next to us at the movies... We always like to sit a few chairs away... right? We like to go to the malls to people watch, and pass judgement on this or that person for whatever they are wearing that moment, correct? How is this going to change?

I honestly believe that in order to avoid tragedies like the events that happened in Newtown, Connecticut, we all have to step out of our comfort zones... What I plan on doing is going out 2 nights a week, and learning about 2 new people. No matter where I meet them, and no matter if I get the cold shoulder... if I get it, OK  At least I tried... If change is to happen, it needs to start with the individual, and not the people we elect... And anyone and everyone who is all about gun control, be so! But realize that this country has been built on the right to protect our freedoms by any means necessary. For those of us who believe that God had something to do with it, He didn't... Personally, the one attribute that has me falling in love with God the way I do, is the fact that he gave US ALL free will. Any God who is willing to allow us to chose yes or no, right or left, up or down, right or wrong... So, if anyone wants to blame God, case is not valid. God does not allow the orchestration of evil. You can not convince me of that ever, I don't care if you believe or not.

I apologize about the soapbox moment there, but some things needed defending. We definitely need to work on being human, and not trained robots allowing our phones, our agendas, our "lives" to get in the way of being decent human beings! It can, and it needs to change! We have to take the effort to extend an honest and loving hand of help to anyone who may be in need. If its a bum, give him the measly change that is jingling in your pocket, or a dollar or something... If its a "creeper," let ourselves be known to them! Maybe they aren't creepy at all! Maybe they are just attracted to you... you can tell them no if you want, but get to know who they are... Make a friend before the movie, or before the game, or before the concert... You already have one thing in common with that person... We just have to do better by ourselves. We have to start taking better care of each other by just simply smiling. Show that you care! Make someones day better by just being kind... We can not allow another killing of 20 kids and 7 adults to happen again... we can't allow 22 more kids to get stabbed again... WE, no matter color or creed, AS ONE BEING, NEEDS TO BE WILLING TO TRY TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE! It does not start with complaining to the higher ups... it starts by us trying to become humans again... Maybe, our first collective step should be to turn the phone off in public. We don't need to take pictures of our food, our drink, our friends... We should just enjoy the company. Let's try that out for a while.

I do hope you get what I am trying to say in this blog, and I hope you are willing to share my thoughts with your friends and family around the world! By no means am I trying to make you abandon the loved ones we have grown to love, but we just have to try to make being human something more than a proverbial now a day rarity. I also stand by what I said... If I didn't I wouldn't have put it in this blog. If you agree or disagree with what I said, cool! That's your opinion, but, it will NEVER change mines, and I do hope you respect that. Its been nearly a year since I have done one of these, and it feels DAMN good to be back. Thanks for reading, and I hope that this motivate one of you to break the current trend of being about ourselves, and actually start to care about our fellow human beings out there. And when we do, lets leave all the politics, and all the religion out of it. Let's just be friends with differences.  ALSO, by no means am I trying to make ANY company out to be the bad guy, I'm just naming products to show how small our worlds have become as individuals. Let's not allow another tragedy to realize how precious our lives are. Let't now allow our selfishness to get in the way of being semi decent humans, WORLD WIDE! We have to allow pebbles to be pebbles, and not turn them into boulders like we did with a certain chicken company, in comparison, that should not have mattered ever, ya know? Instead of feeding the hate, lets at least find a way to agree. All in all, we just need to find a way to slow life down, and allow ourselves to love someone new.