“You know I don’t understand why you don’t treat yourself better…”
-The Eagles’ Don Henley, from “The Long Run”
We disrespect ourselves when we embrace and promote lies. Acceptance of lies is a form of self-loathing. “I’m not good enough to insist on truth. I deserve to be lied to.”
We disrespect ourselves when we accept the unacceptable. Sixty days into 2023, there have been more than 90 mass shootings in the United States. And we don’t just accept this, we have actively chosen it. We could change it. There’s no doubt about that. But we have chosen not to. Only people who deeply dislike themselves refuse to correct the correctable. We have become a nation of give-up artists.
I don’t understand why we don’t treat ourselves better.