Acceptance Speech

These days I am constantly analyzing the world and everything happening in it. I take in all the information coming at me and try to make sense of it; and that in itself is hard because I do not trust so much of the information that is out there. I think almost every bit of information we intake is skewed in some manner. The media is so much hype anymore...and I think it gets humans hyped up on what someone thinks we need to get hyped up about. Problem is, I can't seem to figure out just who that someone is that decides what gets hyped. Where is our information really coming from?

One thing I do see is that we get hyper about causes. We make anything and everything a cause. The media throws out words like "victim" and "discrimination" so much that these words don't even hold meaning anymore. If everyone is a victim, then no one is a victim anymore, because everyone can't be one in the same situation. But bandwagons are fun to jump onto and the fear of being in the wrong camp plagues a lot of humans. So there are many who jump on for the ride of inclusion, and not so much because the cause is something they really believe in.

I have noticed that this phenomenon has made it much easier for people to justify almost anything they wish. And finding others who "accept" the behaviors and beliefs that we see as the cause of the moment seems to lend a bigger push towards things that we might not have originally agreed with before the cause became popular. Acceptance eggs on the justification process, when really the acceptance of others has nothing to do with the reason we should be doing something. In the end, we answer to ourselves and justification will not save us if we have chosen the wrong path. Acceptance from others does not make something right. Popular opinion does not change fact. Saying something is red when the color is really blue does not change the color.

Now I am not here to make judgments or pretend I know what is best, or even make analogies of any situation out there, but I think that it is really, really important to weigh the things that we have an inclination to stand behind, and make sure it is for the right reasons. Reasons that we can truly live with. It is also crucial to know the facts behind the cause, not the hype. This also takes soul searching. As a person with sometimes extreme amounts of empathy, I have to stop myself and understand what is real in a situation, and not what has been hyped and glorified. It's a full time job, but one I have to look to my conscience and value system to achieve.

In my heart, I know what is right, and my heart may know something different from yours. As always, I'm grateful for agency, and that everyone has that gift of choice. The rest is up to us.