Hello again world, it's been a while. Life has been too distracting for me I suppose and this blog has been neglected. No promises that it won't happen again.
I'm sitting in bed pondering all sorts of thoughts on this summer night. Because of my job I hear terribly sad things on a daily basis. Most of the time I can push them aside but every once in a while some stick a little longer. Tonight is one of those nights.
After processing some very sad news about dear friends, a client asked me through tears "why do so many people make bad choices?" As a trained therapist my mind quickly filled up with all sorts of professional answers to rattle off. But as I sat and looked into her sorrowful eyes all I could find myself thinking was "I don't know." Numerous thoughts of recent sad news and my client's traumas quickly flashed through my mind. And then I thought out loud, "I don't know." I think she was a little surprised by my answer as she took a pause from her soft crying. Often my client's come to therapy looking for answers to make sense of the trauma or sorrow in their life. And I do my best to help them with that. After giving my client a moment longer in her tears we continued on in processing and my training kicked into gear as we focused on ways of coping and dealing with emotions. The conversation moved on and I put it in the back of my mind for the time being.
Fast forward a couple days later and I am wide awake wondering the same thing again. "Why do so many people make so many sad and poor choices?" Just as I mentioned earlier, I could rattle off a lot of theories and explanations. But I find myself concluding in my thoughts "I don't want to know why." At least not completely. At least not about everything. I firmly believe that we can learn a lot from our mistakes and poor choices. I believe we can learn a lot from others' poor choices. I think that is what life is all about. But there are some things that I hear like family members being decapitated simply because they were distant family to someone in the drug cartel; parents who abuse their children for years in the most horrific ways and degrade them; or killing numerous people in mass shootings; and I decide I don't want to know what was going on in the heads of those individuals that did those things. I don't want it to make sense because it should not make sense. Acts of cruelty and violence are not something I ever want to be okay with. I honestly believe that if it ever does start to make sense that I should be concerned and I should find help. Some may say that is a naive response or very ignorant. Call it what you may. I'm okay with that. But for now I will just settle with "I don't know why and I hope I never know why." I hope that I never see the world or people in such a dark and twisted way.
No comments:
Post a Comment