That's right, folks. It's me. Originally, it was going to be our very own DuplexEmotions but unfortunately, I contacted him too late and he didn't have enough time before having to leave for the weekend to get it written. Don't be dismayed, though. He'll be our next week's DD guest writer.

I could have tried to find someone else but with the latest happenings in this community, I had something that I wanted to say. It would have been a little too long winded for a normal reply so I thought that I'd fill in the guest spot with my thoughts for the week.

So, without any further delay, let me present this week's guest writer.....ME!

Until next week, stay safe out there,

Rob

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One of the greatest things about my job is that it has taught me to look at our society through a variety of different “glasses”, so to speak. I can take a single topic and look at it as an issue of black and white or I can look at it from a rainbow colored bridge. This has allowed me to grow as a person, to become more accepting of the world around me. As a matter of fact, I consider this gift to be one of my greatest assets.

For example, let’s take the issue of homosexuality. Many conservatives out there vehemently oppose any acceptance of it by society and have obstinately condemned it as a “sin worthy of an afterlife of hellfire and damnation”. Many liberals view it much in the same way that those who lived through the purple-hazed 1960’s with absolute ideology that we should “love thy neighbor” and hate is a negative energy out to destroy the world. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle…perhaps more towards the left rather than the right. After all, if you see two men or two women get married in a church, is that going to make you look at your husband or wife any differently? That the love you share is somehow damaged by the actions of others who have no connection to you? Then again, I would not rather see two heterosexuals romping in the park than I would two homosexuals.

The world is comprised of a variety of views. Republicans view Democrats as unintelligent, uninformed, andÂ….let me see if I remember what other word this PimpRig forum member called me in a PMÂ….oh yeah, extreme left-wing radicals. Democrats view Republicans as a mindless, letÂ’s-turn-the-clock-back-to-1950, take the womanÂ’s shoes and shove her in the kitchen, evangelicals out to destroy the liberal origin of this great country. Some Americans view the French as spineless, greedy snobs who should not be allowed to host anything other than an invasion while some French view Americans as righteous, greedy pigs seeking world domination. Most Americans consider Canada as the 51st state and most CanadiansÂ…well, they would agree with most Americans.

Hey! Just kidding to our wonderful brethren to the north. YouÂ’ve got a beautiful country and if I could, IÂ’d relocate to British Columbia. I still dream about my brief trip into that beautiful countryside.

However, this wonderful gift I have cannot override some of my most basic principles. As much as I want to say that I consider myself an accommodating guy, I draw the line when it comes to things to which I consider basic attributes to any decent human being. One of these attributes is accepting responsibility for your own behavior.

As of late, our society has been transformed into a society that has become too forgiving of people. WeÂ’ve allowed ourselves to believe that there are forces beyond our control that are directly responsible for any type of behavior not accepted by the society as a whole. Let me give you some examples.

A man cheats on his wife and is caught. It is not the man who is responsible for his behavior, rather it is the pressure of the job, the many nights spent on business trips, his wife distancing herself by not “giving it up every night he’s home”, the kids, the bills, yada, yada, yada.

A teenager wakes up crazy, kills his parents, goes to school, starts killing other students until the police arrive, then commits suicide. It is not the teenager that is responsible but rather the “Grand Theft Auto” video game, the “Natural Born Killers” DVD in the player, the Marilyn Manson playing on the radio, and the sexual abuse he suffered from his father when he was 10-years-old.

A PimpRig forum member initiates a trade with another PimpRig and doesnÂ’t follow through with the trade and ends up with both the product and the cash. It is not the PimpRig memberÂ’s fault because this member got a boo-boo at work, they lost their job, they got involved in marijuana, ecstasy, and a multitude of other drugs, they just got out of rehab and are trying to put their life back together, they got a new job as a security guardÂ….whoops, armed security guard that risks their life everyday to protect the physical assets that arenÂ’t worth a personÂ’s life in the first place, they had to move in with family members who graciously cough up $3K so they can build a new rig (rather than building a budget rig and diverting the leftover cash to pay debts with), or a variety of other bullsh*t excuses that make me physically sick to the point where I feel like vomiting.

It has become all too easy to step back and shift the burden of responsibility to a third element rather than saying, “yes, I did that and I have no excuse”. These people nowadays lack any semblance of a “core” of who they are supposed to be. Is their no trust in your words? Is there no honor in your actions? No. It has become far too efficient for them to say that they were not responsible, that they were possessed by an entity that controlled their behavior as if possessed by a demon. Far more convenient it is to say that you had been subverted to an influence where you lacked any free will of your own.

You know what I like about the Anonymous programs out there? They help you recognize that yes, you do have problems but it ultimately is your own decision, you and no one else, that affects yourself and those around you. They help you accept responsibility for your actions that have caused harm to yourself and others. How? For example, at an Alcoholic’s Anonymous meetings, the first thing everyone does is to stand up to a crowd of others and say, “My name is ______ and I am an alcoholic”.

What are the key words of that last sentence?

“I am…”

Not “my wife made me an alcoholic”, not “work made me an alcoholic”, and certainly not “society made me an alcoholic”.

That statement speaks volumes about the character of a person. I used to work in adult probation many years ago supervising those who had been sentenced under alcohol related offenses. I had to attend the meetings with these people on probation to assist in their probationary terms. You know what? It’s easier for me to put more faith into a person who can stand up and say, “My name is _____ and I’m an alcoholic” than I can a PimpRig forum member screwing another member and saying the things that they offered up as an excuse.

I have remembered and always will remember a very special person in my life, Father Aaron. I was blessed (although I didnÂ’t know it at the time) to have been in his American History I and II classes many years ago (the first time I tried college). He offered me some of the best advice that I had ever received from anyone in my entire life. The following is one of the many pieces of advice he gave to me when I tried to turn in a late paper for credit and I would love to pass it along to any PimpRig forum member, past, present, and future, that purposely wrongs this community in some hurtful way, then returns to beg forgivenessÂ…I say this to those people.

“If you want sympathy, look it up in the dictionary. It’s between sh*t and syphilis.”

Father Aaron Pembleton in 1990
May He Rest In Peace

Great post Rob.

They only thing I don't like about Canada is that they always look down on us while we have to look up to them. Why can't the world be flat?

Great post Rob. It's just like in Ultimate Frisbee. Your friend screws up catching the frisbee, says "My bad", it's probably just as much your bad for the throw. The fact that the frisbee has left your hands and drifted towards him doesn't change that.

nice dd rob

i have not really payed attention to this section before, but i am deffinitly gonna be looking at it a bit more often.