Emotional Responsibility

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No one has the right to consciously hurt other people, yet sometimes we are just nincompoops and we run around with tunnel vision and we don’t recognize the harm we are causing others with our ill-considered behavior.

But I don’t mean these situations, I mean the ones where there is no tunnel vision, but a wide-angle lens. The situations where it’s not a “whoops”, not a stupid oversight but situations in which people treat other people so shamefully wrong that it cannot go unrecognized by anyone.

Are there bad people? People who are not just a little fudged up in their heads, but especially in their hearts? It makes me so endlessly sad to have to answer this question with a “Yes”. There are people like this and I see more and more. The damage they cause is the size of a natural disaster because they are destroying the most important thing we have –our basic trust.

I can’t wish anything bad on these people, that would be against my nature, but I wish them insight. Insight is what makes it at least a little better when they become aware that they, too, have an emotional responsibility, which arises from the fundamental respect and responsibility we have towards our fellow human beings. You can’t get rid of that, no matter how many times you tell yourself so.

And what remains after such a natural disaster? First of all, a lot of dust. And when this has subsided, the true extent of the damage that has been done becomes apparent. It shows up months or years later, often at times when the one who caused all the damage is no longer in the picture.

In my opinion, we are not only responsible for our own feelings but we also have a responsibility for what feelings we cause in other people. I hope that the Wrecking Balls will understand this at some point -perhaps at a very brief moment of uncertainty. I wish them healing because most of them got hurt themselves.

Healing will certainly not happen by inflicting even greater hurt on other people than they have suffered themselves. That seems to be the point where so many choose the wrong path. Hurting other people’s feelings doesn’t make your own hurt go away.

Many country’s constitutions declare that THE HUMAN DIGNITY IS INVIOLABLE

Yet human dignity nowadays gets trashed on a daily base. Strangers hitting strangers verbally online for the rest of the world to read.

We have weaponized reality and use now an alternative truth to hide incompetence and ignorance.

It starts small in online places like Facebook or Twitter. We see it in advertisements, hear it in speeches, read and watch it in the media. And, sadly, there is my personal peeve, the phone calls when I am put on a holding line. When finally a human answers on the other end, I have long forgotten how I was raised. How often do use purposely a rough tone to get my point across? Too often to admit, yet just one time is too many and I know it. Just like I put a smile on my face when I talk to customers on the phone, because I believe we can hear a smile, I can also purposely put a frown in my voice.

I had to remind myself that the person on the other end is a human being working to make a living, just like I do. It doesn’t matter if they speak English with an accent -just like me- or if they sit on the other side of town with a framed master’s degree on the wall. They all deserve to be treated with dignity. This is my emotional responsibility.

Our politicians, the leaders who should lead by example often seem to think that being a bad example is the modern way to go. Sadly many -too many- people seem to agree, mainly because they are no longer willing to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.

Emotional responsibility! Perhaps a class we should consider teaching in all schools. It seems we are lost in our ways but perhaps the next generations will do better and treat each other with care and consideration.

Hurting others with actions or words is never okay -no matter who does it.