"Your personal beliefs offend me"

There's one thing I've noticed about Americans lately: we are people who get really offended. About everything. Everything. We're offended when people say something that we don't agree with, but not only that, some people are offended when other people don't BELIEVE the same things that they do.  

 

What. on. earth.

 

Is that what our world has become? 

 

Oh my gosh, people. Seriously can everyone just CHILL OUT for one week or something?

 

Offended, according to google, means: "resentful or annoyed, typically as a result of a perceived insult." 

 

That's pretty accurate, if you ask me. People act like another person believing something that they don't agree with is a personal insult, which means that we have a right to be super resentful/annoyed about it.

 

 Guys, come on. Nothing good comes out of someone acting offended by a statement/belief. Just because someone says something that you don't agree with or something that may not be the nicest thing DOES NOT mean you have to be offended.

 

Gay people get offended when people don't agree with their beliefs, different races get offended when things aren't perfectly equal. Women get offended that things aren't perfectly equal for them. But is being offended really the right response? I'm not so sure it is. 

 

I don't think Jesus was ever "offended" by what people/said did. Did he agree with everything other people said/did? Obviously not. He wasn't offended when people mocked him or blatantly disagreed with his teachings. He did rebuke people, and sometimes it was harsh. But he didn't do it because he was offended. Being offended isn't a good reason to do anything. Doing something out of love, or doing something because you know it is what is right/for the best, that's different. But please, please, don't make decisions or act on something just because you were offended. 

 

Martin Luther King Jr. didn't help lead the civil rights movement because he was offended by how the blacks were being treated. He saw discrimination as WRONG, so he did what he believed was RIGHT, but he didn't do it because he felt like people were personally insulting him and he was resentful. It's all about your motives.

 

It seems to me that the people in history who truly wanted to make a difference... they weren't the people standing from soap boxes shouting things about how things are so unfair for them and yelling about how they are soooo upset that you don't agree with them. 

 

No, that's not how it goes.

 

The people who truly make a difference realize that there is some injustice going on, or something is truly wrong, and they want to fix it. But they aren't fixing it just because they're resentful towards other people, they fix problems because they want to make the world a better place and they are motivated by what they believe is RIGHT, not by what they were offended by. 

 

So, guess what, everyone? You don't have to be offended by everything. Please don't be. It makes for a lot of grumpy people who hate each other and just want to get back at other people and show that "I'm better than they are!" 

 

Let's learn to be a society that can respectfully disagree with others, and at the same time work to make necessary changes in a thoughtful and kind way on issues that we believe are right/wrong.