Apathy≠Tolerance

I love to meet new people. Throughout my life, I have experienced the joy of meeting new people. In years of working in different hospitality and customer-centric roles, I have had the privilege of meeting people from all over the world.

In my current daily gig, I help people relocating to Texas who come from different States and a variety of countries. The humans I meet come from diverse cultural backgrounds and have a wide range of global experience. Some have never ventured outside of their home State. Others are seasoned World travelers. All come to Texas, particularly the DFW area seeking greater opportunities to grow both personally and professionally.

The more people I meet, the more I realize that most of us are more alike than we are different. We share common values. We share similar dreams. We all want to love and be loved.

When I watch events unfold like the bombings in Manchester this week, my heart aches with the senselessness of what a murderous thug has carried out. It is gut wrenching when it happens anywhere to anyone, but it is particularly disconcerting when attacks are carried out on children.

While I love to meet new people, I realize that there are those in the World who seek to do others harm. They strive to terrorize us. They yearn to destroy us and our way of life. Why they want to do it really no longer matters to me, if it ever did.

When the only means of making your point requires strapping on a bomb and blowing yourself up along with killing and wounding masses of people, I just don’t give a rat’s rear-end about what you’ve got to say.

When your way of life supports the cowardly killing of children and others who do not conform to your worldview than “Houston, we have a problem!”

There are the voices amidst the din saying these attacks are just something we need to get used to.

Please.

Let us not confuse apathy with tolerance.

Radical extremists —whether homegrown radicals like Timothy MvVeigh or misguided jihadists like Salman Abedi –simply aren’t something we can afford to “get used to.” We cannot ignore them. We cannot tolerate them.

Sure with each blow, our skin gets thicker.

But our resolve to combat evil can not, and must not waiver.

If persuading others to see your POV or negotiating for the dominance of your worldview requires murdering others, you need to seriously reexamine your attitudes, beliefs, and values. The cowardly murder of others to make your point simply is not something that the rest of us living on Planet Earth can accept or turn a blind eye toward.

Murderous actions do not make you patriotic or pious; they make you pitiful and pathetic.

What about us?

We must act. We must respond.

How?

By defending our way of life and by continuing to live how we are blessed to live. We cannot ignore the problem nor can we go hide in our closets. This will take resolve. No doubt. However, future generations need us to answer the call of our lifetime. We can not live in apathy.