The Monsters We've Created

Just when I think I can't see or hear about anything worse than the sadness that already exists in the world, today I read that a 16 year old girl was stabbed to death in the halls of her high school allegedly because she turned down a request to go to her school's prom. She was an athlete and a scholar, and she had her whole life ahead of her. She went to school this morning just like every other morning, and her life ended. What has happened? I am amazed that any child these days can even function in school having these horror stories hanging over their heads. What kind of generation are we raising that they have no regard for human life, even their own? When I was in high school, and yes, I realize that was more than 30 years ago, but the worst thing I had to worry about was taking a test I hadn't really studied for. I was never afraid at school. I knew my share of assholes and jerks and drama causers, but I was never afraid for my life. Stop and think about that for just a minute. School has become a place where our children can get killed. And I'm going to probably ruffle a few feathers here, and I am not trying to stir up a debate. This is just my observation, my opinion. Banning things is not going to help. We need to start raising our children to respect others and respect themselves. How someone could so easily take someone else's life without any regard or thought of consequences to the young girl, her family, himself or his family. I'm not saying that there is a simple solution to this out of control problem, but what I am saying is that we have to start at the beginning as parents as mentors. We need to teach at the very start that there are consequences to our actions and stop making excuses for bad behavior. If we excuse small things, that leads to letting bigger things go, and soon we have created the monsters who think nothing of stabbing a fellow student because things didn't go their way.

♪♫ You Can't Always Get What You Want ♫♪

I have spent the better part of today listening to people who are disappointed. Some take it as part of life and move on.Some want to whine a little but still accept it, and then there are the few that refuse to accept it and demand that the situation MUST be changed! This isn't possible! How can I be denied anything? And then they begin the process of trying to change it. When did it become the norm that life is always exactly the way we want it, and disappointment never occurs? That has never been the world I've grown up in, nor was it the world I raised my children into. What people fail to realize is there is no good without the existence of bad, and sometimes the answer is "NO" What kind of fragile, glass world are you building for a child if you arrange everything in their life to go exactly the way they want it? You may buck the odds for a time and be able to succeed, but each year that goes by untouched by failure or hurt or sadness sets that child up for that one day when the disappointment will come, and instead of it being a small crack to cope with, that glass world will shatter into a million pieces. By making everything run smooth until that point, you have taught that child nothing about coping. In all of your grandiose efforts to keep anything from going wrong, you've actually hurt them in the process. Disappointment is part of life, and often it's the things that go wrong that make us stronger and equip us for the next derailment of our oh so perfectly planned life. Two years ago, just about this time, we found out that my oldest daughter would not be going to the college of her dreams, and for a while, we were devastated. Instead of putting all our efforts in trying to change that outcome, we focused, instead, on acceptance and making another plan. One year ago, about this same time, we found out that she would be attending another college, and in a few short weeks, she will have finished her first year there. She could not be happier. She is thriving and happier than I have seen her in a very long time. She is where she is supposed to be, but if she had spent all of her time when she received that disappointing news trying in vain to change it and refusing to accept the answer, "NO" she would not have opened herself to the possibility of a new college and would be miserable. You can't always get what you want, but you might just get what you need.