I realize some people talk about this in a mocking way, and I should start by saying that is not my intention. That being said, I hope to keep the sarcastic side of my brain in control, because he usually likes to take over when I touch this subject.
My point, to be clear, is that there is no Utopia that we will one day achieve were every social problem we have has been solved. In other words, we will always be fighting with something, we will always be struggling and because of this is actually important that we don't believe in the fairy tale of utter safety.
If you talk to a Physician about the health of a child, for example, the physician is likely to tell you things that might seem counter intuitive. Let your kid play with pets, play with dirt, the Physician is likely to say almost anything short of licking door knobs. Why is this? Well, because the world has germs, it has microbes, and it's important that a child develops a strong immune system to be resistant to them, since we can't really eliminate them from our environments in their totality.
One would think that such a notion is analogous to other aspects of our lives, and I submit to you that it is, but somehow the newer generations are struggling to see the parallels.
Understanding what things are our choice, like our attitude towards an aggressor, and not our choice, like the aggressions themselves, gives us the mechanics to distance ourselves from reactionary behaviors that more often times than not are self defeating.
There's few guarantees in life, but of the short list, there are some that are non debatable. We will one day get our hearts broken, we will one day be bullied, we will one day experience abuse, we will encounter people that hate us for things out of our control, like race, religion, place of birth, etc. If we can't accept that the world will never truly eliminate hardship and cling on to the idea that we are on our way of making it emotionally antiseptic, we are setting ourselves up for massive disappointment.
MenO
