|
|
At the end of this post I'm going to give a link to an article I read today on CNN from Oprah.com. It's an article that, at first, made me mad, and then just sad. Mad that Oprah would put this garbage in her magazine and on her website, and sad that so many women will be influenced by it. It's an article titled, "She's happily married, dreaming of divorce". I can sum up the article pretty easily for you: I I I I I, Me Me Me Me Me. It's an article that is just dripping with selfishness.
Selfishness, it's the mindset that says, "I'm going to do what I want, regardless of how it effects other people, because what matters most is me and how I feel.
The article is written by a woman who is most concerned with herself and her feelings, and she'd clearly like other women to share her views. The woman states in the very first paragraph of the article how selfish she is. It can be summarized like this: "I think about divorce every day when my husband greets me in the morning, because after 16 years he still doesn't know that I'm not going to be in a good mood before 10am." She then goes on in the next couple paragraphs to complain about things her husband does (like he doesn't have a list himself on her). The rest of the article is basically how she contemplates divorce, how divorce is actually not a bad thing, and how marriage in general is actually the problem. Here are some snipets from the article.....
"Still, beneath the thumpingly ordinary nature of our marriage -- Everymarriage --runs the silent chyron of divorce."
"Should I stay or should I go. Our mothers knew better than to ponder such questions, at least not out loud in front of God and the hairdresser.......If we jump ship now, we're still attractive prospects who may have another shot at happiness."
"Marriage and its cruel cohort, fidelity, are a lot to expect from anyone, much less from swift-flying us."
"I recently stood by as a clothing designer, a mother in her 40s, announced to a group of women that she was divorcing her husband. The women's faces flickered with curiosity, support, recognition, and -- could it be? -- yearning. Not a one of us suggested that she try harder to make it work. No voice murmured, "What a shame." Because it isn't a shame."
"My husband is my best friend," others will say. No. Your husband is not your best friend."
"Our day comes down to choices -- and it's finally dawning on the long-term wives of the world that divorce may be the last-standing woman's right to choose."
"This is not to say that dismantling one's marriage will automatically bring happiness; it's the idealization of marriage that needs to be shredded"
"Maybe one day, marriage -- like the human appendix, male nipples, or your pinky toes -- will become a vestigial structure that will, in a millennium or two, be obsolete. Our great-great-great-grandchildren's grandchildren will ask each other in passing, "Remember marriage? What was its function again? Was it that maladaptive organ that intermittently produced gastrointestinal antigens and sometimes got so inflamed that it painfully erupted?" Yes. Yes it was."
Sad, really sad. Notice how many I, Me, Us and We statements are in the article. What you won't find are statements like, "How are my actions affecting our marriage?", "Am I being the best wife I can be?", "How would my leaving affect my children and husband?", "What can I do to make my marriage better?". Those statements aren't there, because how her actions affect others is not her primary concern. How other's actions affect her is her primary concern. Selfishness.
I'm sure her husband isn't perfect (he hit her with a car so obviously he makes mistakes), but I didn't see anything in the article about him being an abuser or a adulterer, just an imperfect guy. Plus, someone else's improper actions or behavior isn't an excuse for us to react wrongly anyway. But so many times we do. "I wouldn't have reacted that way if so-and-so hadn't of done such-and-such first. Wrong. We should react in a Christlike manner regardless of what others do.
I've been studying the subject of selfishness lately, as it seems to be the root cause of many of the arguments between the children in our house. A verse that really struck me was in James 3:14-16. It basically says emotions like bitter jealousy and selfishness, are not from God, but are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. Wow, demonic - that's pretty strong, but it's true. Which makes perfect sense when you think about it. Satan is the ultimate example of selfishness, and Jesus is the ultimate example of complete selflessness. Satan was an angel that wanted to be worshiped as a god, and it got him kicked out of heaven. Compared to Jesus, who in the garden of gethesemane prayed that if it were possible, that he wouldn't have to be crucified, but that ultimately God's will would be done, not what He wanted. Ultimate selflessness.
I guess because selfishness has been on my mind as of late, even though this article is basically a woman's skewed view on marriage, the pure selfishness of it just jumped out at me. Here's the link.....
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/08/26/o.divorce.dreams/index.html
P.S. I know that I'm not perfect (just ask Janie), and that I have areas of my life where I'm selfish, even in areas that I may not realize. I'm a work in progress.
]]>Yeah, I'm starting my own thing. I'd do the Things on Tuesday (or is it Two for Tuesday?) but unless you count having so many creative Halloween ideas, I'm tripping over them, I don't really have anything to complain about. Being creative makes me feel fantastic.
So, this is something that warms my heart each and every time I see it...
This is such a beautiful, beautiful post on marriage, friendship and partnership.
Yeah, i did it. I look like a scene kied due to the fresh coat of dye but by three washes, it'll look normal.
I like the idea because it bring backs old memories with my sister when we would be having a conversation. Nice sister chat, right? Except she would be staring at a huge pimple on my face. Then I have to go "I KNOW WHAT UR LOOKING AT!" and she would say "I can't help it takes up half yo' face!" Then we would go obsessively scrub our pores in fear of another huge pimple. I had pretty bad case of pimples when I was a young teenager. It went away when I got into the late teens, early twenties. Ohh ahh, memories. Ahem. Anyway, Enjoy the video!
After reading raving reviews from various homies about Girl Talk, and his latest album, I decided to give it a whirl after coming across it on someone's iTunes share at work.
Holy shit! I do love me some well-done mashup goodness, and this is it. Currently listening to an amalgam of Deee-Lite, Salt n Pepa, and Nirvana. It's pretty much impossible to convey the awesomeness in a post, so here... listen:
It's not because of Obama's goofy choice for a VP... despite the fact that, as the first black President, he's almost certain to be assassinated. It's not because of his backpedaling on issues that are important. It's not even because he didn't take a few minutes in Hawaii to come hang out with me and the rest of the wedding party. Dude's busy. I get that.
No, the reason is email, and Barack's and the Party's annoying abuse of my information. Barack's got one email address for me (I remember giving it to him a while back), and the Democrats have another one that goes to the same email box, which I don't remember giving them, but I guess it's plausible that they got it through some non-shady means. Anyway, I'd say it's about two times a day on average that Barack sends email to the address that he has, and nine times out of ten, the Democratic Party sends the same exact mail to the address they have. Beyond that, I get another handful of emails every week from Howard Dean, Michelle Obama, and Nancy Pelosi at the Party's email address.
THIS IS TOO MUCH FUCKING MAIL from a political campaign. In case the fact that I have email didn't tip you off, let me let you in on a secret about me: I have a fucking computer, and it's on the fucking internet. I can read the news, your website, and blogs. I don't need an email alert to tell me how proud you are that your wife was so eloquent on stage.
That's the other thing... they're all really inane throwaway mails. It's stuff like "Heeeeey, we're gonna announce a VP in a few days. Can we have your phone number and some money?" or "Heeeeey, did you hear that shit that McCain was talkin? LOL! Can we have some money?"
No, dude. I gave you a TON of money already.
Now here's the kicker: I went to go unsubscribe from the Democratic Party's email list, and when I put in my email address and my reason for unsubscribing, I got this:
To ensure the security of your account, we've sent you an email at the address you provided us. This email contains a 4-digit code that you will need to enter below. If you do not see the inbox within a couple of minutes, check your junk or bulk mail folder as your ISP may have incorrectly marked this message as spam.
That was like 15 minutes ago and guess what... Yeah... no email with a confirmation code.
WHY THE FUCK do I need a confirmation code to unsubscribe from an email list? Is that even legal? It's not like the unsubscribe process required my credit card number or something. Just fucking unsubscribe me! Bastards.
I'm thinking about making my own list of every Democrat's email address I can find, and during the day, I'm going to send it updates on how I'm doing at work. Potential subject lines:
* I'm not really voting for McCain. Back off!
