I don’t want to trigger you, but…

Hi, I’m Shellie. Everything reminds me of a story, and I believe life is better when you’re laughing. Hit subscribe and stick around. We need to chat…

I stand amazed at the ever-increasing list of things offending my fellow Americans. Every day reveals a new trigger, defined as anything that reminds someone of a previous trauma and causes them to have an intense emotional or physical reaction. At the risk of sounding insensitive, we all have triggers, a.k.a. painful memories. Some are worse than others, but no one gets by in this life injury free. The challenge is learning to deal with past experiences instead of expecting the world to tiptoe around us, lest we explode. We’re not teaching anyone how to manage their triggers by simply avoiding them and giving in to the culture of offense only exacerbates our personal and collective issues.

Take the Harvard law students who didn’t want professors to use the word “violate” because some classmates may have had experiences that could cause them to be triggered by that word, and hence suffer undue stress. I’m still trying to figure out how one teaches law or practices law without talking about what does and doesn’t violate it? I’ll pause while thinking people roll their eyes.

One of the more recent examples of this off-the-charts sensitivity has to be the Michigan students who voted to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance at student government meetings because it can be discriminatory and offensive to international students. Never mind that whole “liberty and justice for all” part, right? That’s so yesterday. Just joking. I’ve done a lot of joking about all this triggering. It’s been my way of trying to lower the national tension. As I’ve said before, it you want to be offended, you can always find an opportunity. But, I’m here with a confession. Something has come to my attention that has me trying not to feel a little triggered myself!

 

 

The environmental extremists are coming after Thanksgiving, y’all. You heard right. And this is not about that movement I tried to start two years ago called PHAT, People Huffy About Thanksgiving. That was me protesting the way people skip right through the beautiful season of gratitude to get to Christmas, and I pulled my bestie in on that one. It’s worse than that. This is personal. Brace yourselves, people.

They’re claiming the over-production of turkeys and all the holiday travel for family get-togethers is leaving a huge carbon footprint, resulting in, I’m quoting now, “a problematic food holiday.”

Again, I’m trying not to be triggered or set off any trigger happy people, so I’m choosing my words carefully…But I have a big old cast iron skillet that says, “If you come after my Thanksgiving holiday, you better bring back-up.”

Hugs,
Shellie

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