How to Walk, In a World of Projectiles!

This is not your normal post from this author, nor is it a happy go lucky one. This article is written out of frustration in a world that seems to be growing colder and where interactions with others is becoming something this author can no longer understand. Have you ever experienced someone saying something to you that leaves you speechless? Makes you question your own sanity? Makes you rethink your actions from the past and present and question yourself? Something said to you that makes you take a step back and ask yourself, “What is wrong with people?”

Sadly, I have experienced this more and more in this past year and I cannot fathom the exact how’s and why’s, nor can I seem to come up with a valid reason for the constant bombardment of verbal projectiles being hurled my way. It seems our society today has become a place where we say what we feel and no longer worry about the classic “filter” that we all possess. People somehow refuse to utilize their filter any longer due to some twisted form of entitlement where they feel it is their right to destroy another human being.

I am no saint, nor am I perfect in any way, but I do try my best to be a good person. I maintain a humble lifestyle and try to treat others as they would like to be treated. I try to not accuse, talk down to, mistreat, or act rudely towards others. I am not sin free; however, I try to be a kind person, and a better version of myself than I was the day before. I definitely don’t go around lashing my hatred in the face of those whom I feel deserve it nor do I let my tongue go unsupervised to say what is dancing through my mind. I also do my best to not shoot verbal projectiles at those around me, even to those who seem to have me in their cross-hairs (and believe me, I am well armed to fire back).

In one scenario I am a villain and will always be, even though I know the accuser has created this appearance of me only to shield their own transgressions. I will constantly be to blame for all problems and all issues that have taken place regardless of my accuser’s own failures of achievement. I know there are others who face this same type of life sentence and I think what hurts the most is the assigned scarlet letter of “V” that I must now wear due to someone else’s inability to remember, see, and speak the truth.  I am also plagued by the thoughts of what others think about me as they hear about how horrible of a person I am. The saddest part is that these people mean nothing to me, so I shouldn’t care about what they think right!?… but I do. I think deep down, on some level, we all care about what others think about us and when someone thinks something bad about us, that simply isn’t true, it drives us even more crazy as we want nothing more than to expose the truth to prove our innocence. Of course, we don’t, and we find some way to move forward with this little nagging voice in the back of our minds.

In another scenario I am a person who cannot make up their mind, I do not try hard enough to seek out relationships, I express how independent I am to all those around me and even through inanimate objects I express to the opposite sex that I don’t need anyone! I am mouthy, vulgar, fat, and immature. I am not feminine enough, I am a recluse, I am too much of an introvert, I don’t try to make new friends, I like school too much, and my favorite…I’m too smart. These all are amazing discoveries into who I am, and while I agree that some of them may be accurate (introvert and liking school in case you were curious) I find it fascinating that someone without any prior psychological schooling and lacking of a therapist’s license is valid in their analysis of who exactly I am. This person, even though they have known me a very long time, unloaded all this on me in a visit and truthfully it left me feeling hurt, sad, and confused. The hurt and sad parts I am sure you can understand but the confused part became a problem as I could not understand how someone who calls themselves my friend could say such crappy things to me. I was also perplexed by this because I can honestly say that I have never felt it was my place, nor my right, to tear apart another human and say things to them about their life, especially when it comes to another adult. No one has the right to judge me, and I have no right to judge others.

Now I may have the theory of being a friend all wrong, perhaps even being a decent human being is out of my understanding. My interpretation of being a friend is to be there for someone through the good and bad, and if they fall, you pick them up, help dust them off, and get back on their way through life. It is not our job to rub their nose in all their mistakes and make them feel like crap about falling in the first place. We all stumble and make mistakes but aren’t our friends and family supposed to be the people we can reach out to when we need support and comfort rather than the ones who take our breath away with hideous slander?

Perhaps we should all take a step back and do the simple task of thinking before we speak. This is not a forgotten value as we all know to not swear in front of children and seem to be able to somehow mind our language, yet we unleash our deepest darkest projections on the adults in our world. Perhaps we are pointing out all their faults when it is truly our own we are seeing and are frustrated with. Maybe we must see people in our lives as villains in order to justify our own mistakes as looking in the mirror becomes more and more difficult under the veil of deceit we have woven? Who knows the correct answer to these questions. All I know is as I try to navigate through the world around me it is important to remember that the negativity people spew is truly a reflection of them and not me. Perhaps they have things happening in their life they have no control over and the issue is not with me at all, I was simply the next person in line to cross their path that day. Or maybe they really do have an issue with me as they have told so many lies that they have become true in their own mind. For whatever the reason, I leave you with this to think about:

Grab a plate and throw it at the wall, now look at the broken pieces and say “I’m sorry”…it will never go back to the way it was before.