There’s no “Right” to not be Offended

I fear we’ve normalized the expectation that we have a right to never be offended. Human life – being a mixture of conscious and unconscious psyche and of emotionally intelligent and unintelligent people – affords us no such right.

Life itself is offensive.

It includes death. It includes flux. It includes predation. It also includes sublime beauty and grace.

The only response to Life is to take it, and ourselves, lightly. To even approach it with a sense of play-fulness.

We must not put the responsibility for how we feel in any given moment into the hands of other people because other people really don’t have that power, nor should we give them that responsibility. The responsibility for how we feel, for our response to whatever life throws at us, is OURS and ours alone.

This is why we cannot let words get the best of us.

Don’t hang around people who deliberately seek to wound you. And don’t let offensive words from ignorant people define you.

Their ignorant words define THEM. They have nothing to do with you and no power over you.

Seek to be strong enough to let their words roll off you like water off a duck’s back.

Be grounded in who you are. You are a beloved child of God.