Too much on my Mind

How many times do we see a post on line, or hear someone speak and just wonder, how in the world does that person dress themselves in the mornings?  Plenty of times in our world we see, hear and even “repost” disrespectful thoughts, ideas or sayings. Every person is entitled to their point of view and opinions. Our voices should be heard with our opinions, ideas and thoughts so that people know where we stand and more importantly, what we stand for in this world. The technological age we live in allow us to share these any time we see fit. 

It still amazes me what people will post on social media. It takes guts to put out there some of the information that people share. In the same thought, it also takes guts to hide, block, or report people for sharing their thoughts, ideas, words or even feelings.

I recently attending our local school board meeting to hear about a new proposal on a school bond. Our town has grown and will continue to grow in the future. As a community we need to build a new school to accommodate the growth and give our kids the best opportunities available. Then later in the week a tragedy occurs at a school in Florida. From these two single events, I saw tons of posts, heard people’s thoughts and ideas. Most believe they had solved all the problems by the end of the day, or meeting, at least in their minds.

In addition, this week also held the San Antonio Livestock Show Junior Heifer Show. Livestock show season is in the down hill slide right now as San Angelo is wrapping up, steers are moving into San Antonio and dirt is filling the arenas in Houston for the next great event. What I love about Major Show season is the being able to see the all the successes of everyone. Whether it is placing at the top of the class for the first time. Or getting that coveted slap as the champion. For livestock exhibitors it is the Winter Olympics every year. You get to see people hugging, laughing and helping each other out. There is something special about people in the agriculture industry.

When life throws a curve ball, many people react differently. Some duck and run, others stand and face it while others pretend to be oblivious that anything happened. One thing is consistent and has been since the dawn of time. There will always be evil in this world. So, we have a choice to make, do we stand by and do nothing, or do we work to make our world and country a better place. While it is easy to blame others, it takes a better person to search their own heart and see if they are to blame or find salvation. What tragedies show us is that we are not immune to evil. It seeks out the week links and infiltrates their minds, body and even hearts. It forces itself to rear its ugly head at the worst times.

In my experience children that are involved in some sort of extra-curricular activity are more likely to have better developed social skills and become more well-rounded individuals. These can be anything from agriculture related, band, science clubs, honor societies and even church groups. This is not saying that all these people grow up to be saints. They do grow up to be more respectful of other people and compassionate of human life. They grow up to be good stewards of the land, good parents and even good employees. Young people that are given a purpose in life will grow up to be better adults. The same can be said for out treatment of other adults. Every person has a purpose on this earth. We should show every person some respect and common courtesy. There are times when we all feel like some people have lost their minds and deserve no such respect. On the contrary, these people need it the most. They are the ones that are broken. Those are the people that need a kind word, good role model, or even some guidance in life.

We spend a lot of time wanting to blame others for the down falls in our society. We need to only look to ourselves. We need to look to our communities. One of the first school shootings occurred in 1981. The nation was horrified and continue to do so until this day. It was almost 20 years prior to that first shooting when the Supreme Courtof the United States decided on Engel v. Vitale. The case that arguably changed our schools forever.  Is 20 years long enough to erode a that fabric of our morality in this country? What about 40 years? How long do you think it took our country to start normalizing and subjecting everyone to more violence than it can imaginably handle at one time? What principles of Marxism have been allowed to infiltrate our society that allows us to lose our compass as a country?

These are all questions that I do not have an answer and possibly ever will. What I do know is that broken young men seek to destroy others. There are a lot of young men and women in agriculture, sports, band and even church that understand if they have a problem, there is someone to go to for support. They do not go out and seek to harm others, they do not seek to destroy human life. When we as a nation allow others to destroy human life in any form, we should be ashamed.

I will always support people’s rights to bear arms. Even AR-15’s. The reason is simple. You can ban them all you want, and they have been in the past. You can even start asking people to give up their guns. See how that goes. At the end of the day, no one seems to ask the obvious questions. How do we stop young men from being so harmful to others? What causes these men to act out in this way? What has changed in our society that normalizes this type of behavior? Going all the way back to 1981, what is the reason someone wanted to do this type of harm?

This brings me back to my initial question in this post. Do you ever wonder how some people dress themselves? I think if there is one thing that social media has taught us, is that the various ideas and beliefs in this world are far reaching. 

 “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” ~Plato