Offended!

Han played for me a segment from an audiobook he's listening to. It's called Fortitude: American Resilience in the Era of Outrage by Dan Crenshaw. 

Crenshaw relates a story from his childhood, when he was 9, and he was acting goofy in class. They were learning about food chains, and he messed around with it by stating that classmates eat each other (Mary eats Tim, Tim eats Sarah) and then said the teacher, Ms. Smith, eats a student. 

The teacher went berserk. She dragged him to the vice principal's office, where she claimed he was mocking her weight. The VP gravely showed him that for the use of profanity, he could serve prison time. 

He was 9. His mother was called down to the school. She was dying of cancer at the time, and did not particularly care about the teacher's hysterics. His parents did not punish him for his "misbehavior." 

Han then played an interview Crenshaw had with Bill Maher, and he quoted another saying something along the lines of "Try hard not to offend, and try even harder not to be offended." 

He was saying this in response to a question about a SNL parody done of him, when his eye patch was mocked. He lost his eye in combat, so yeah, low blow. (The SNL comedian apologized and was forgiven.) 

It made me realize how many "offenses" are really misunderstandings. Crenshaw, at 9, was clueless about the teacher's weight, but she, perhaps quite self-conscious about her dress size, overreacted to his childish musings. Because she could only see things from her perspective, she made a mountain out of a molehill. 

Look, I'm one of those annoyingly sensitive people. I get insulted very easily. Additionally, nearly all of my interpersonal interactions are overanalyzed in retrospect, to the point I'm in near tears at my potentially harming comments. 

But if I would get out of my own head a little, and not be obsessed with my own insecurities, I would realize that nobody really meant anything by what they said, nor are they giving my words that much thought. At least, not as much thought as I'm giving them. 

It's about looking less inward, and more outward. To see people. And to acknowledge, as I heard it said, "That you're not that important."