Can't we all just get along anymore?

[Nascar36]

Like most you I suspect, I was at work when I heard of the school shooting yesterday, and the news kept getting worse and worse! By the end of the day I called my wife and told her I just wanted to come home, not talk about it, have dinner, and watch a good, uplifting movie with no vilence. You may or may not know, in my home state of Oregon, we had a mall shooting. I will tell you, that mall is one of the three largest malls we have here in Oregon. If that shooters gun would not have jammed, there was over 10,000 people in that building at the time of the shooting, things would have been much worse. This morning, I got up, had my coffee, and turned on the news like I always do to start my day. The coverage of the shooting was still being shown of course, and my eyes are filled with tears. Here I am, a middle aged, grown man with tears in my eyes. I can tell you, I don't get tears in my eyes very often. I can't stop thinking why this is happening in my country and in my home state. As a country, what can we do to stop this? I am not talking about politics or gun control measures here, but what can we do as people to change this from happening? Maybe the answer is something we have all been told as we were growing up, " treat people as you want to be treated" Sounds simple, right? But how many people follow the rule? As a automotive service writer working in a dealership, I can tell all of you I have learned I have the ability to escalate or de escalate any situation. I have the ability to ruin a persons day or to make a person smile and leave happy, even over a bad situation. An example might be the following: we repair a customers car to the best of our ability, with the knowledge and tools we have. We test drive the car at the end of the repair, in our eyes, the customers problem has been solved. The customer comes in at the end of there day, maybe they had a bad day at work. They pick up their car, they discover the problem with there car was not solved. They are upset, as anyone would be. We get upset, mostly because the customer is upset, and we thought we had solved the problem for the customer. The customer comes back in to the dealership, boiling hot mad. Now think about this part. At that point, I have two choices. I can get pissed off and tell the customer where I think he or she should go ( and take his or her car with them ). The result of this might be, now we have two angry people. The customer goes home angry. He or she is still angry and because of this snaps at the spouse and children. They become angry. This goes on all night, then the next morning, they go off to work, still upset. Maybe they snap at one of their coworkers or customers, the cycle continues. That's just there family. Now, I go home. I am angry, I say something to my wife, now she is upset. My kids come home, they do something that makes me angry. Most of the time, I would let it go, but because I am still upset over what happened at work, I say something. They are both upset. The next day, we all get up, still upset about what happened last night. We all go to work and....the cycle continues. All over two people who became up set at each other. Think about what would happen if those two people just took a minute, and worked out their problem at the time it happened. I used my own situation only as a example, this could be anything such as the next time you go to the store to return sometime, the next time you have to go to city hall, the next time there is a billing issue with your cell phone, the next time someone cuts you off when you are driving to work, the next time the dogs who lives next door to you barks, ect, ect. My point is, sometimes anger, violence, and revenge solves nothing! Think about the last time you became angry...did it solve anything? If all go out and start our day, everyday, with the intention to help another person with a problem, everyday, I think we as people could change our country for the better.

 

No, I am not a bleeding heart liberal, in fact I am a life long conservative republican who just is tired of all this violence in my country.

 

Thanks for reading this and I wish you all a merry Christamas and a happy New Years.

[SonicHD]

Clackamas TC was my "home mall" growing up in SE Portland. And on top of that, I was a witness to a stabbing during a fight at my Middle School (1993) and then a shooting in the cafeteria my Freshman year at Marshall High (1995) fortunately nobody was critically injured. So being I have been in that situation before, and then having it happen at a place that was a big part of my life growing up really hit home for me.

 

And then it only took 3 days to have a situation that trumped Clackamas.

 

Not even in movies has anything been so horrifying as to take out a whole classroom of children. Dont think it can get any worse than that.

 

Then I turn on the news this morning, and hear of a murder-suicide at the Excalibur in Vegas.

 

This is becoming a daily thing. I almost dont want to leave the house anymore.

[crowvet]

I own a auto repair shop, so your write up was a very good fitting example for me. Nice write up and thoughts God bless you and your family.

[Marylander]

I really think people are just wound so tight these days. Overworked, squeezed financially, frustrated that the government can't act like adults on a single issue, etc... I think the pace of today's world is just more than the human race is geared to take. We need some downtime for mental health, to reconnect with family, friends and nature, and so on. we're all trying to live in a giant pressure cooker, and it's killing us.

[Nascar36]

I own a auto repair shop, so your write up was a very good fitting example for me. Nice write up and thoughts God bless you and your family.

 

Thank you, Merry Christmas to you and your family also.

[Rich]

Someone will blame it on tv, someone will blame it on gun control, someone will say it's video game violence. Everyone will have an opinion, but it comes down to a man with mental illness who didn't get or didn't want the help he needed.

It was senseless, nobody could have seen it coming or prevented it. He snapped. In a perfect world, we would all be trained to identify the signs and report it to the proper people who would in turn help the afflicted person before tragedy. But this sure isn't a perfect world.

I don't understand it. I can't comprehend his thoughts. And I pray I never have a day where I'll experience what those parents are going through. All we can do is pray for the families to get the help THEY need now and in the months to come. And love our own kids a little bit more and with a little bit more patience.