Am I tough enough?

This will be a little off my normal subject material, but that’s ok.

My tai chi instructor was on a topic last night about toughness. He grew up poor in southern Mississippi, walked to school uphill, both ways, worked 3 jobs by the time he was 10, etc. I believe him, for the most part. LOL He’s 65, so born in 1959. They didn’t have a/c. No television until sometime in the mid 1960’s. His dad had been a marine. And he talked about the founders of tai chi and other martial arts and how they were so much tougher than we are today because life in general was much tougher then. Tough times produce tough people kind of thing. I was born in 1968, grew up lower middle class. I don’t remember missing any meals, but the meals were pretty basic and we had no extras as far as toys and clothes and such. But I don’t remember my life in general being too tough. Now when I started training in martial arts, I got tough. My instructor was old school. We fought with a mouthpiece and a cup, no pads. It was close to full contact. We punched cinder block walls, kicked trees, sometimes trained for 4 or 5 hours, etc. Often no heat in the winter and no a/c in the summer. That kind of thing. We were a tough group, physically and mentally. My tai chi classes are 3 hours long, but not nearly as intense as those workouts back then.

I had to quit running when I was about 42. My knees and hips just couldn’t do it anymore. Around that time, I also retired from Tang Soo Do as well because of severe back issues. I had, and still have, a desk job. So I found other ways to stay in shape and eventually found my Wu Tai Chi instructor I have now. I practice the tai chi, do a little yoga, work with a steel mace, walk, and have just started seeing if I can do sprints again. But I’m still not in the physical condition I want to be in. Granted, I’m 55 and not 40, but by today’s standards, 55 is still pretty young. I do believe that physical toughness makes you mentally tougher. And I think that’s a good thing. I saw a statistic recently that 77%-80% of people in America between 17 and 24 would be rejected by the military. I can’t find any solid stats to say what the percentage was in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, but I don’t think it was significantly lower. For me, the military has always been a tough standard, that’s why I bring it up. It’s tough to be in the military! For those of you who served, thank you! So I’m not saying the average American should be as tough as our military personnel. I don’t think that’s realistic. Military life is usually much tougher than civilian life. So the people are tougher.

But I do think a physically and mentally tougher society is a good thing. And by tough, I don’t mean macho. I don’t mean homophobic or transphobic or any kind of “phobic”. I’m not talking about what you believe about societal issues of the day. In my mind, toughness has nothing to do with whether or not you tend to me a more effeminate male or tend to be a more masculine female. I’m not talking about losing empathy for our fellow man. And I’m not saying that everyone should be at the same physical or mental level as some “standard”. I’m just wondering, whoever you are, whatever condition you are in, could we all be a little more physically and mentally tough? I think so. It could be as simple and reading more books. Going for a half mile walk after work when all you want to do is crash on the couch. Would that benefit us as a society? I believe it would. I know it would benefit me to be a little tougher. I’m sure I would complain less about life in general. That’s a good thing. With the current US and world landscape, there is no telling what might be coming down the road that could make like harder. I’d like to think I’m more prepared for whatever that could look like than I am now.

God told me to

I know instances like the below article are fairly rare on the grand scale, but damn. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/woman-says-god-told-her-035718911.html

You only have to do a brief search on Google to find a whole lot of people doing some horribly crazy shit because they believe that their God told them to. Even if you take out the big events and just focus on the folks with possible/probable mental trauma, it’s a shit ton! And even if you just narrow it down to your average religious person making some bad life decision because they feel like their God told them to, it’s still probably a crazy high number!

After attending a state university and getting a bachelor’s degree, I wound up going to a Bible college in the Tulsa, OK area. I heard many “testimonies” of people who left jobs and situations because God was leading them to go to this Bible college. At the time, I was drinking the Kool-Aid by the barrel as well, so I was like, cool. God told them to leave their situation and He would take care of them. A couple that stand out were people who were just a few months away from being able to take advantage of their military/police/fire/company pension… but God had other plans. So instead of hanging in there and getting their pension and going to Bible school later, they trusted that they were being led by the Lord to leave all that behind and go when they did. The last time I heard from any of these folks, they had either gone back to school or gotten some kind of skill training so they could get a job that paid them a living wage. And every one of them regretted leaving the military/police/fire/company when they did. It’s all fun when you are caught up in the hype. God will provide! And all that bullshit. But it short circuits a person’s good judgment, that God gave them, to do some stupid stuff. Sometimes even crazy, illegal stuff that hurts a whole lot of people.

Yep, just doing some venting. I hope you all are doing ok.

Evidence for God

This post comes along because I watch atheist call in shows on YouTube. Often, the caller will say they have proof of God or evidence for God. But, it continues to amaze me that people don’t know the definition of the word evidence. If the police showed up at your house and said that you are under arrest for the murder of so and so, the first thing you or your lawyer would ask for is evidence. If the police said, we just know in our hearts that you killed so and so, you would know that this isn’t going anywhere. Evidence! Do they have a murder weapon with your finger prints on it? Did they find your blood at the murder scene? Do they have any witnesses or video of you murdering this person? Did they find emails from you talking about murdering so and so? That’s evidence. If I told you that I have two large orange cats living in my house and you didn’t believe it, I would invite you to my house to see the two large orange cats. There would be the two cats. They would probably be sleeping contentedly on the couch or on my bed. There would be food and water bowls. There would be litter boxes and extra litter in the garage. There would be cat hair that matches the cats, everywhere. This would be evidence that I do indeed have two large orange cats living in my house.

But, when people are asked to provide evidence for a god, they say “the Bible” (or whatever holy book they read), or go into these philosophical arguments or talk about a personal experience they had that can’t be experienced by anyone else or the fact that babies are born or sunsets or trees or some other complete bullshit. When I was a Christian, I was asked to give evidence a few times by skeptics and non-believers. I answered the best I could based on what I had heard in church, personal experiences, etc. But it was never really evidence. Thus the person asking the question was not convinced and did not become a believer based on my answers. The question is so simple. Can you provide me evidence that would make me believe that your god exists? Period! I can provide you evidence that I have two large orange cats living in my house. I can provide you evidence that I own a white Chevy sedan. I can provide you evidence that I own a pair of black shoes. I can provide you evidence that I have two adult children. But if all I could present to you is that I say I have two adult children, but no pictures, no birth certificates, no social security cards, no actual adult children, you would have no reason to believe me.

George Carlin does a bit called religion is bullshit. Look it up on YouTube, it’s very much worth the watch. At one point, he says he really tried believing in God, but just couldn’t. I assume jokingly, or maybe not, he said he eventually became a sun worshipper. Reason number one, unlike some other gods, he could actually see the sun. It adds to the credibility. Yep, evidence. Like I used to, believers will say something about we have to believe by faith! Well, if there is a god who won’t provide evidence of its existence, and there is a hell that awaits people who don’t just believe by faith, that god is a monster. Among other choice adjectives. If there is a loving and just god that we have to believe in or else, why won’t this god provide evidence of it’s existence? I just don’t get it? I know, I know… his ways are higher than my ways, his thoughts are higher than my thoughts… blah, blah, blah.

Ok. That is all.

Do other religions do this?

So, I’m working from home today. A relative has a YouTube channel playing. It’s a daily prayer thing hosted by an evangelical Christian church of the charismatic flavor. Praying in tongues, moves of the spirit, etc. The pastor is “prophesying” by the spirit. Revival centers popping up across the country. Millions coming to Jesus. People being healed and such. Do other religions have this kind of stuff going on? I really don’t know? Do Islamic leaders say things by the spirit of God? Do they have Islamic revivals? Or those of the Jewish faith? I’m honestly curious. I don’t think they do, but I’m not sure?

I remember hundreds of prophesies over my 25 or so years in charismatic Christianity. Most of them were towards the end of one year and the beginning of the next. “God is going to do a new thing this year”! “Millions will get saved and healed!” “The spirit of god will move in our schools and there will be all kinds of changes in our children!” The worst part is often, the prophesies rhymed. Things will be great in 2008. You will be just fine in 2009. It will be like heaven in 2011. Yep. Super cringe! Ugh.

I can’t think of any of the prophesies coming to pass. Most were pretty specific that it would happen in within the year. I can’t think of any supernatural move in our schools that has prevented school violence and shootings. I can’t think of any bars that closed down because god supernaturally caused people to not want to drink anymore. There were prophesies about churches bursting at the seams because of the awesome stuff god would be doing in America. I did a casual search and found that in 1992, 70% of Americans said they attended a church or synagogue on a regular basis. In 2022, that number was 46%. Holy shit! That is a huge decrease in a very short period of time. So, at least during that period, the prophet was wrong.

If there is a loving god out there somewhere, I would love for that god to show themselves to human kind. Miracles, healings, peace, all people having enough to live on, etc, coming from some kind of move of god. I’d jump on that band wagon and drink the Kool-Aid by the gallons! But I kind of doubt that will happen. So, back to my first question. Do other religions have prophesies like this? And do they come to pass in a tangible, measurable way? If you know of any, please let me know.

It’s ok to not be ok

Let me preface this post with some comments. In this post, I’m not talking about chronic, long term physical, mental, or emotional trauma or issues. I was severely depressed for several years, day in and day out, and that’s not ok. I finally found a great psychiatrist and got on some effective medications that got me to the point where I could start to utilize tools to deal with the depression. I needed to find help or I probably would not still be here. So if you have chronic long term pain, depression, anxiety, addiction, etc, I’m certainly NOT saying that is ok and I very much hope you can get some help and healing and relief.
I heard a quote today by a man named Dean Burnett that prompted this post. He said, “I think the current cultural perception of happiness as something you need to have, or else you’re some sort of failure, is unhelpful. Happiness shouldn’t be the default state in the human brain. If you’re constantly happy, why would you do anything? You need it as a motivator to make you do stuff, to get you through life. You need the full range of emotions and experiences to be able to appreciate things.” You can find the short interview with Dean Burnett here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/28/dean-burnett-happiness-should-not-default-state-human-brain-the-happy-brain

Happiness shouldn’t be the default in the human brain. Isn’t that interesting? I would say that when you look at social media, go to arts and crafts stores to look at wall hangings saying “positive vibes only”, read popular self-help books, and the like, it sure seems like we are being “encouraged” to only be happy. And if we aren’t happy, something has to change so we can be happy. I’ve read some books and articles that talk about how our brains in many ways still operate like when we were in the stone-age. Someone said that our brains are wired for certain conditions, but our surroundings no longer match those conditions. Again, isn’t that interesting? I wonder how much time and energy was spent in trying to be “happy” back in that time? I would think that human’s main concerns were finding food and drinkable water, procreation, shelter of some kind, and not being eaten by a predator of some sort. I guess if you got through the day with all that, it was a good day. I’m not saying stone aged humans were not happy, but that probably wasn’t the number one concern. And our brains are still very similar today!

But now we are constantly being told, that’s not enough. Do what makes you happy. Follow your passion. Sadness is a bad thing. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t seek moments and times of happiness, I’m just saying I think the need for it can be over rated. I’m an amateur musician. Playing music makes me feel happy. I’m a martial artist and practicing my martial art makes me feel happy. Being with friends, family, my cats, etc, makes me feel happy. But there are plenty of times when I feel down, or bored, or tired, or any number of feelings that don’t line up with feeling happy. And I think that is ok.

There are Buddhist principles that I have learned and practice that speak to this. The idea that situations or feelings are either good or bad isn’t something that is clung to. They are really just situations and feelings. Not labeling them as good or bad helps makes the end of “good” situations and feelings not such a bummer and going through “bad” situations and feelings not such a bummer. The brain wants to immediately go to extremes here. Someone will say that thousands killed in war is bad! How can that not be bad? I get that. But when practiced in your day to day life, within normal events, it’s very helpful. Not labeling events in our daily lives as good or bad helps to stabilize our emotions. Instead of having very high highs and very low lows, the line looks more like rolling hills than mountains and valleys. I find it’s less exhausting.

Also, the idea of impermanence is helpful to me. The only constant in the world is change. The good, or preferred, times come and go. And the bad, or not preferable, times come and go. If you wake up tomorrow feeling sad, that’s ok. You could have eaten something the day before that messed with your mood. You could have not slept well. You could have watched something sad before going to bed. Or, you could just simply feed sad. We experience a wide range of emotions daily. Someone cuts you off in traffic and you are pissed! A few minutes later, your favorite song comes on and you are happy. Just be in the moment, no matter how you feel. Our moods can change in an instant.

The religious group I came out of was very much about being happy and content and all the positive stuff as often as possible. If you feel depressed, that’s the devil! God doesn’t want you to feel depressed. If you feel lonely, that’s also the devil! You are never alone, God is always with you. And on and on…. Bullshit! We never took into account that it’s absolutely normal to experience a full range of emotions and feelings as a human being. See, now I’m getting angry just thinking about all that fuckery! And that’s normal! LOL Please don’t buy into the hype of needing to always be happy. It’s ok to not be ok. There is nothing wrong with you if you are occasionally sad or depressed or angry or any number of “negative” feelings or emotions. You are human. We are affected by so many factors. Positive vibes only is unrealistic.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, chronic or long term mental/emotional or physical issues should be looked at by a professional. I live with chronic pain that is less some days, and other days it’s so bad I can’t eat or sleep. Those days really suck! On the really painful days, there is often nothing I can do to alleviate the pain. I don’t beat myself up for it. It just is what it is. Normally, within a day or two, it’s manageable again. Our happiness level, or lack of happiness level, is very similar. Enjoy the happy moments! Do things that make you happy. Absolutely! Be happy as much as you can be. But don’t think there is anything wrong with you during the times where you are not happy. We will all experience the full range of feelings and emotions in our lifetime. Some are more preferable than others, that’s for sure. And preferring those is ok, too.

Religion seems weird to me now

I’ve been wanting to write on this subject for a little while. I follow Brian Hines on Church of the Churchless blog and he has an “open thread” from time to time where people can post anything they want. For some reason, I saw it today and went ahead and posted how religion seems weird to me. So below is what I posted on his open thread.

I grew up as a Christian (originally Presbyterian) with the last 20 plus years of that belief being in the evangelical/charismatic flavor. I’ve been an agnostic atheist for about 6 years now. My wife is still a very devout Christian and doesn’t know the full extent of my deconversion. Maybe someday. But because of her still being a believer, I hear plenty of sermons per week and lots of really shitty Christian music. Speaking of, is all religious music as bad as Christian music? Just curious. Anyway, the further I get from my religious roots, the more I think how weird religion seems to me now. I can only imagine how weird religion in general seems to someone who was never part of any of it. People have an imaginary friend who they talk to and hope to somehow hear back from. This imaginary friend is super powerful and created everything and has things that they want you to do, and things they don’t want you to do. Often there is a book that their imaginary friend wrote, or at least had a hand in writing. And the people who believe in this imaginary friend live their lives (or profess to do so) according to the book he wrote. Oh yes, the imaginary friend is always a he. Isn’t that interesting? More often than not, this imaginary male friend is a loving being. Unless, of course, you don’t believe in him. Then he will almost always condemn you to some kind of suffering or torture after you die. Forever. As though living life here isn’t suffering enough! And isn’t is interesting that where you are born and raised has almost 100% to do with which imaginary friend you believe in? Many wars have been fought over, my imaginary friend is real and yours isn’t. Or something similar to that. Maybe my imaginary friend is offended by something you did or didn’t do and I have to fight you on his behalf. And then there is the whole money thing. At least in the flavor of Christianity I came out of. This imaginary friend always needs more money! At least 10% of your gross, not net, income. And if you give more than that, he will do some special favors for you. Yep. He’s just cool like that. But I do think it’s interesting that since I quit giving 10% plus to my imaginary friend, I’ve been able to get out of, and stay out of debt. Something I never could do when I was giving all that money to him. And then there is the whole prayer thing. Prayers are basically asking your imaginary friend for favors. Things like, please heal my cat. Please help me get a promotion at work. Please make my kids believe in you so they don’t get tortured forever. Please let my football team win this weekend. Please keep it from raining the weekend of our church picnic. While the farmer is asking for rain on that same weekend so he doesn’t lose his farm. How does that work? But I do get it to some degree. Just like when kids have an imaginary friend. This friend is someone they trust and can talk to without fear of judgment. And as “adults”, we are only a few years away from being children. 50 years seems like a long time, but wouldn’t we all feel a little better if we still had our stuffed animals? Or is it just me? So if we want to still have our imaginary friend, that’s cool. But I shouldn’t be trying to convince you that my imaginary friend is real, and is the only imaginary friend you should believe is real. And promise you rewards if you believe it, and punishment if you don’t. Yep. The further I get from religion, the more weird it seems.

George Bernard Shaw

“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

The Thinking Atheist podcast

Wow! I highly recommend listening to the latest episode of the Thinking Atheist podcast! It’s episode 702 with guest Andrew Whitehead. It’s a really good and helpful conversation between him and the host, Seth Andrews.

The draw of a purpose

I’ve written about purpose before, but wanted to revisit it. I was talking to a friend recently who deconstructed/deconverted from Christianity around the same time that I did. We talked about our kids, marriages, life in general. We talked about things we used to believe, currently believe, and not sure what we believe. One thing he brought up that I thought was interesting is that he said he misses believing that God has some specific purpose for his life. I totally get that. The idea that God has a plan, a purpose for my life is one of the main things that drew me to the charismatic/word of faith flavor of Christianity. I had been a Christian since I was 12, but when I started hearing about God having a purpose for me, I wanted to know more. At that point, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was around 23 years old when I met folks from this kind of church. I was told that God has a plan for my life, all I have to do is ask Him and He will show me. Great! That sounded like a heck of a deal. So, I started asking. And attending church. And asking. Went to Bible school. Kept asking. I would think that I was supposed to do such and such. Kept asking. More thoughts about doing such and such. And kept asking. After a long time, I started to realize that the “answers” I may have been getting were really just my own thoughts. And not long after, I realized that I no longer believed.

Part of me was excited to see what this new life of freedom had for me. Another part, like my friend, missed the idea that there was a God who had a specific plan for my life. It took a while, but now I like the idea that I’m free to do whatever I want with my life without messing up some plan that this invisible, silent God had mapped out for me. I no longer believe that life has some inherent purpose for everyone. Below is an excerpt from Osho talking about how life has no purpose.
“It is very difficult, particularly for the Western mind, to understand that life is purposeless. And it is beautiful that it is purposeless. If it is purposeful then the whole thing becomes absurd – then who will decide the purpose? Then some God has to be conceived who decides the purpose, and then human beings become just puppets; then no freedom is possible. And if there is some purpose then life becomes businesslike, it cannot be ecstatic.

The West has been thinking in terms of purpose, but the East has been thinking in terms of purposelessness. The East says life is not a business, it is a play. And a play has no purpose really, it is non-purposeful. Or you can say play is its own purpose, to play is enough. Life is not reaching towards some goal, life itself is the goal. It is not evolving towards some ultimate; this very moment, here and now, life is ultimate.”

I tend to believe this. I do, however, believe that you can find purpose in what you are already doing. Or you can find purpose and meaning in something you might discover down the road. I don’t always like my job, but the purpose of going to work is to make money for myself and my family. Also, to have something productive to do with my time every day. I practice tai chi because I enjoy it and want to get better at it. I think you can have moments of purpose as well. When my daughter was in college, she spent every spring break with a group from the university that went to poor areas in various cities and painted houses, mowed lawns, worked with the homeless, etc. These week long trips gave her a sense of purpose and meaning. My point is, even though I don’t believe life has any purpose other than itself, or that there is some God that gives people their purpose, I still think life can have purpose and meaning. But it’s given by the individual to themselves. Your purpose or goal might be just making it through another day. Alan Watts says to look at life as play, or as a drama. Life can be very, very hard. During those times it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to look at life as play. Maybe a drama, but not play. And that’s ok. I went through several years of extreme depression where my goal was to just make it through the day. And it totally sucked! Part of the depression was because I could not for the life of me figure out what plan or purpose God had for me. It nearly drove me insane. Years later, I hardly think about why I’m here or what purpose or meaning my life has. It’s taken a lot of time to shed that old way of thinking. Studying Buddhist and Taoist philosophy has helped. Lots of meditation and mindfulness practice has been good, too. And I try to not lose the wonder of the world we live in. I’ll look at my phone, or smart tv, or electric cars or any other technology that wasn’t around just a few years ago and just be like, wow! That’s amazing! Or even just noticing everyday things and realizing that I can comprehend what I’m seeing and have thoughts about it.

From Albert Camus – “Embrace the absurd. Humans want meaning and purpose, but the universe is indifferent to our existence and offers us no inherent meaning or purpose. The only way to confront this contradiction is to embrace the absurd, accept the inherent meaninglessness of the universe. To find meaning and purpose in the act of living itself. Actively engaging with the world and finding joy and fulfillment in the present moment.

You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. Suicide, faith, or acceptance. Since your life has no inherent meaning but the meaning you give to it, you can change this meaning at any point.
Embrace the present moment. Experience the beauty and wonder of the world around you. Look for beauty and wonder in your daily life.”

This mindset makes sense to me now. Being able to be in awe of the fact that I exist. I Googled, what are the odds of me existing? The answer I got is one in ten to the 2,685,000th power. So, basically zero. Wow. Now there have been days in my past, and probably will be days in my future, where I wonder if I want to be existing at all? Life can be hard. It can be very hard. But it can also be wonderful. Most of the time, it’s somewhere in between. Learning to be ok living in that in between is challenging, but I think it’s worth it. Like I said, I understand the draw of a purpose, especially a divine purpose. I still occasionally pray, if there is a god, and that god has a purpose for my life, please show me. So far, it’s been pretty quiet on that front. If I ever do get a definitive answer, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Perspective, yet again, again

I’m probably going to catch all kinds of hell for this post, but here we go. I was born in 1968. I grew up in Tulsa, OK. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Oklahoma, but especially in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, it wasn’t the most diverse, forward thinking, open to new views and ideas state in America. It still isn’t, by far. I haven’t lived there for a long time, but I now live in north Mississippi. LOL! So yeah, I’ve not exactly been in areas on the cutting edge of progressive social issues and change. That being said, I am doing my best to keep up with the more recent social issues of the day. Multiple genders, gender fluidity, pronoun preferences, etc. As far as I know, I do not work with anyone who has a pronoun preference different from their day to day outward appearance as far as historical gender roles go. Did I say that right? I hope so. It’s getting difficult to say things in a way that won’t offend people, even when that is not the intent. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to my children about these things, educating myself to the best of my ability. I want to be understanding and compassionate and supportive of people.

The event that has me writing this happened a couple days ago. My 23 year old son works for a company that is very forward thinking, and he is as well. He is a very hard worker and has always done well at any job he has ever had. He was written up at work, not for poor work habits, or bad customer service, or being late, or anything like that. He was written up because he did not refer to a co-worker by their preferred pronoun and they complained about it to management. He forgot this person’s preferred pronoun because 99% of the people he has ever known in his life go by the pronoun that he used with this person. So instead of his company standing up for a stellar employee and explaining to this person that everyone is doing their best to accommodate them in their preferred pronoun, and explaining that this is not yet a common social norm, my son gets written up.

So, what does this have to do with perspective? Well, I wonder if any of the thousands of people in the Gaza strip or in Israel, who are in fear for their lives, are being offended if someone says, sir, look out for that bomb!, instead of, they, look out for that bomb? I wonder if any young people who are starving in South Sudan are offended because someone referred to them as she when they prefer he, or vice versa? I work with man (meaning, of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring) that grew up in Haiti. He was fortunate to have a very small home and both of his parents were able to find work. His family would have fallen well below the poverty line in the US, but there, he thought they were rich. Based on the things he has told me about growing up there, I’m pretty sure no one got offended by not being referred to by a non-traditional pronoun. Many are just glad to have any kind of shelter and food.
I’m all for supporting any person that I can. If Tony, a man according to the above definition, who I’ve worked with for 14 years and has always gone by Tony, comes in tomorrow in a dress and says, from now on I’m Tiffany, I’m all for it. Tiffany it is. But if I slip up and accidently call them Tony, like I have for 14 years, I certainly don’t think my job should be in jeopardy! Now, if I call anyone at work asshole, or bitch, or any other derogatory term, then yes, there should be some kind of disciplinary action taken. Again, perspective. When my son realized he had not used the person’s preferred pronoun, he apologized and corrected himself. This person was still offended enough to bring it to management’s attention and demanded action. I guess in today’s world with social media and lawsuits and all that, the company figured they would catch less flack taking action against my son then they would if they had stood up for him. And I get that. I think its total bullshit, but I get it. Am I offended by the person’s offence? I suppose I am. Am I pissed and venting? Yes. Would I have written this if it had not been my son but one of his co-workers? Probably.

My sincere apologies to anyone that I may have offended by this post.
When I do get pissed like this, I think of the meme below. 🙂