Being Offended

I recently started a thread which was meant to have a little bit of fun. Someone then mentioned that some of the items posted were offensive. According to the dictionary offensive means:
1)Unpleasent, 2)causing anger or resentment, insulting.
The "problem" is that these feelings are subjective. Anotherwards, a person who feels offended by a certain action, may be completly unimportant to another individual in the exact same situation.

There are two questions I would like to propose:
First, How are we to determine if an action is truly offensive, or is the individual simply over-sentisive.
Second, If we are on the receiving end of being offended, what should we do about it.

I will start with the second questions.

Many times in my life, I could state others have been offensive to me:
a. As a child, I was very lousy at sports, always picked last, ect. MY CHOICE - I simply worked at what I was good at. Got myself a paper route and other Kid business enterprises. I always had an extra dime for Ice cream, ect

b. I failed my drivers road test five times MY CHOICE - I learned that some people are slow at some things. I beacame a very sucessful driving instructor. I would impart to my students they were always good at something (eg cooking, sports, ect) and I always gave them encouragement to strive to pass the test.

c. In the Army, I was never in the "in group" beacuse I didnt go drinking with them. MY CHOICE - I waited on the Lord. There were several times that some of those guys would come to me to seek friendship counsel, since they knew where I stood.

d. In Germany, I was offended at Chapel (the Gospel was never preached) I spoke with the Chaplain. He told me to go with the flow. MY CHOICE: I started a (non-chapel sponsored) Bible Study. With Gods grace, it became organized as a local church and we saw great things happened.

e. I was selected by Dept of the Army to be a recruiter. My Brigade Cdr (a Col) said I would not be a good recruiter. MY CHOICE - So be it - I was transfered to Fort Hood, and was given the best job, I ever had in the Army. (I then got out and became a salesman!)

I could go on with several more items. I have had a number of minor physical and other "disabilites" and I do make light of them.

The bottom line is that it is so easy to wallow in self-pity about a "problem" Oh, that word offends me. My OIC, Captain Phil Hennin once told me. Sgt Teachout, we have no problems, we overcome challanges!

A major challenge in America is to realize we are a bunch of wimps! My motto in the Army and even now is: "Those who have something to do, find a way. Others find an excuse!"
Let me give you a perfect example. In my taxi, I transport many senior citizes. Some DEMAND to sit in the front seat, beacuse they (say) cant get in the back seat. A couple times someone told me that, but there was already someone in the front (they too "needed" to be in the front seat) I told them if they didnt get in the back seat, they would miss there doctors appoitment. It was surprising to see they were able to overcome that (previously unattainable) challange.

My goal in '06 is to read Tom Brokaw's book, "The Greatest Generation" If, America acted in the 40's like we do today, we would be speaking German.

Salty

I initally did not know how to spell Tom's last name, but after previewing the post, I realized I needed to FIND A WAY to properly spell his name!