Yeah well, your behavior sucks too; you just won't admit it

The world, I informed my husband last night, has run crazy. He smiled sympathetically and nodded before kissing me on the forehead and assuring me that things would settle down again soon. He knew, as did I, that I was simply fed up and needed to rant. He then listened attentively as I railed about the insanity that has been my week thus far.

It has not, by any means, been an easy week. In the midst of preparing for the questions and concerns from all of the students in my PA classes, I got a dose of the childishness that so often consumes the Pagan community.

As anyone that has spent any time with the Pagan community can tell you, trying to get Pagans on the same page is like trying to herd cats. It simply isn't possible. Being opinionated isn't a requirement in the Pagan family of faiths... but some days it certainly feels like the most opinionated are included in our ranks.

And with opinions has inevitably come an inability for some to work together. It's not just one community that deals with the senselessness, but nearly every community. At times it feels like everyone wants to be in charge and no one wants to listen.

That is where the problems start. They inevitably grow from there to the point where the entire community is embroiled in a massive conflict that no one is willing to admit fault for and no one is really willing to try and fix. They talk the talk, but far to often they fail to walk the walk. This week was, unfortunately, no different. But, had that been all, I wouldn't be writing this now.

Alas, when the wind blows ill, a storm generally follows. I have come to the conclusion that the problem isn't the Pagan community in specific, but people (generally of the adult variety) in general.

In the past week, Arkansas has had 2 college shootings. To add to that, yesterday afternoon what started as a fight between two high school girls over some boy soon ended in chaos. By the time it was over nearly 30 people were brawling in the park and several had been shot. But! That is not the worst part.

What makes the situation so much worse, to me, is that those who were doing the shooting were parents and adult family members of some of the students involved.

Yep. You read that right. The very people who should have been trying to stop the fight instead made the situation so much worse and not only thought it a good idea to start swinging at kids, but apparently felt it an even better idea to start shooting at said kids.

We always hear about how horrible teenagers are... but really, has anyone looked the heck around lately?! We seem to have forgotten that lead by example is more than just something to say. It actually means something... and sadly enough, when it comes right down to it, we continually drop the ball. We turn a blind eye to the behavior of our peer in order to focus on the behavior of younger generations and those younger generations suffer right alongside us for our failures.

It's beyond disappointing to me. In truth, it absolutely infuriates me to hear adults ranting and raving about bad kids but keeping their mouths closed and their eyes focused elsewhere when it's time to recognize the ridiculousness of others that have joined the ranks of adulthood. How we expect kids to behave when the examples they are set all to often aren't any better is beyond me.

Do as I say and not as I do has never made sense to me. I always hated it when someone would say that to me for the simple reason that I could never understand how someone could be so incredibly hypocritical. To me, what you say doesn't hold a candle to what you do. But, all too often do as I say not as I do trumps lead by example and everyone suffers for it.

And I know some of you will inevitably come back with something along the lines of what I've been dealing with this week is not typical adult behavior, but I really must beg to differ. I'm 24 and have, since I began working, always been one of the youngest on any given job. So, for the last 5 or so years, I've watched how adults act and this is not atypical behavior. That is not to say that all adults are idiotic, because they aren't. I know just as many wonderful adult role models as I do piss poor adult role models and that is the point here... they happen in equal measures.

At the nursing home the employees that were supposed to keep the patients safe often caused more problems than the most befuddled and upset of our patients. When they weren't bickering back and forth and trying to get someone or another fired, they were talking about their friends as if they couldn't stand them, sitting outside on break half the live long night or griping about having to do the job they signed up to do. And that cycle of idiotic behavior has been in evidence everywhere I look. Those sorts of people are everywhere.

And the pathetic behavior of those sorts of people, I would hazard to guess, is exactly why so many in the younger generations are so clueless. And we really can't complain and blame just the kids when in truth, their parents and their parents peers hold just as much of the blame. The problem is a lot more far reaching than "just how kids are" and it's about time people recognize and do something about it. If one can't admit fault and take responsibility for the role that one has played in raising another.. that one has absolutely no room to talk. And it is an endless source of frustration to see those people acting like idiots who know no better and then turning around to rant and rave about how bad teenagers are when they do the exact same things that that one was just doing.

At some point, being an adult really should mean growing up. And I'm just wondering when that happens, because far too often, we don't see it. And we wonder why the world is insane.

The world hasn't gone insane this week... it's been insane for a while now. I just got another reminder of that this week. And sadly enough, I can't even say it will be the last dose of adult childishness and idiocy that will crop up and make things more difficult than they have to be. I just hope that those in my generation and the later generations remember how irritating it was for them to have adults placing all of the blame in their direction and truly begin to lead by example instead of following those same footsteps and turning a blind eye. It's beyond time to move in a totally different direction. My life has barely begun and I've had enough of this current direction of "ignore responsibility and blame others" to last me two lifetimes.

At some point, it just really has to stop.

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