Part of The Problem

I am often inspired by Twitter trending topics (and I have tried, unsuccessfully, to start a few of my own - cowbell as a trending topic was just plain fun though, I will admit!). When I took a look today, I was rather intrigued to see #PartOfTheProblem as a trending topic, so I clicked to see what humanity (or twitter-manity) thought part of the problem really is in this world of ours.

Admittedly, I was a tad surprised to see that part of the problem has to do with relationships. Or rather, how people think relationships should run. Granted, many of these tweets included the word "hos" and other words that I don't care to bring in to my happy little blog home. And if you're tweeting about hos, then yes, I would imagine part of the problem, or the twitter-ers problem likely DOES have to do with relationships.

There were a few tweets about not giving your heart to God, and some about Justin Bieber. For the LOVE of ALL that is good in this world, can someone PLEASE explain to me just what the appeal is with that kid? And further more, who picked him to be the lead in on "Heal The World" part two? I think THAT is part of the problem (with that particular song, anyway).

Then there were a few that stood out as rather touching. Someone noting the difficulties in writing a book and getting the character to accurately portray him/herself to the reader. Another noting the difficulty in being a good person.

In my own humble opinion, here is a list of things that I think fall into the "part of the problem" category:

• People don't appreciate their lives enough. Even though there is bad (and it sometimes seems like more bad than any one person should take), the blinders remain on to block out any bit of good.
• There's too much fighting in Washington, DC. We elect these people to go and fight for us and, once they get there, they loose sight of that and worry only about their images, paychecks, and getting re-elected (probably in that order). I find this to be the case more often than not for ALL parties.
• I want to be a millionaire but damned if that lottery hasn't worked out for me just yet.
• People have very short attention spans now a days - when was the last time the crisis in Haiti was in the news?

But I think the most important item on the part of the problem list is that people seem to have lost a common sense of kindness and courtesy towards their fellow man. How often do you ignore a homeless person on your way to work? How often do you not hold the door for someone when they're trying to walk into a building and their arms are full? How often do you ignore the person behind the cash register at the grocery store or pharmacy and not tell them to have a nice day? How often do you cut someone off in traffic, judge someone by the way they look before you know them, or talk on your cell phone in a public restroom? (That last one may seem WAAAY out of left field, but I am talking about common courtesy here too and that one is just so wrong, I can't even think straight!).

All in all, part of the problem is that people have lost the ability, interest, or desire to care about the other cohabitants on this planet. And if everyone could just take a moment to remember that, despite our differences, we're all in this together, then maybe we could be on the path to finding part of the solution.

- The Incident