Imagine this:
You wake up one morning to find all your pets in the bed with you. You think, ‘Huh, that’s odd… that one’s usually on the couch, that one always sleeps on the floor…’
Then, you notice the smell of gas.
You jump out of bed, sleep-hazy, trying to remember all those safety videos they showed in elementary. You open the window closest to your bed.
The smell is permeating your house, and you become panic-stricken: OH MY GOD, WHAT IF I CAN’T GET TO THE WINDOW IN TIME & I BREATHE TOO MUCH OF THIS IN??! THIS IS HOW PEOPLE DIE… I THIS HOW I’M GOING TO DIE??!!!?
You throw another window open, inhale air from outside, then run across the house to open another window. You take another deep breath of fresh morning air.
Open the back door.
Comfort a bewildered dog.
Try not to shake with absolute fear as your hands tremble at your sides.
But you’re not “allowed” to be angry, to point out the failure or flaw, to have your terror and fear received and understood and to be soothed. Why? Because your partner, the one of your twosome notorious for leaving things out, open, on, and who made tea before bed, won’t hear it.
In fact, they’re mad that you’re mad.
Why?
Because they didn’t mean to.
They didn’t mean to be wasteful of resources (your money, because you pay the gas bill; of the natural gas itself). They didn’t mean to be careless. They didn’t mean to do a horribly reckless thing that could have killed your entire household as you slept.
Didn’t.
Mean.
To.
We see this again and again. “I didn’t mean to” offered as an excuse for thoughtlessness, for ruin, for whatever effects unconscientious causes. Just ask forgiveness & all is well.
And that mess is for lazy twits. (I almost put an ‘a’ in there… and also almost used a different word, same # of letters, but still ends in ‘ts’… your girl is HEATED) Fragile egos all over the place use that excuse to escape responsibility and blame.
Which… maybe I’m just not made for this new Trump era “reasoning” and definition of ‘truth’ so correct me if I’m wrong, but what you set into motion, you are responsible for, whether you intend it or not. Like, if you turn something on, you’re supposed to turn off, and if you don’t… that’s on you.
The gas, for example.
Maybe you didn’t mean to be careless, but that’s he very nature of carelessness. You don’t have to try to BE it; you simply are it. And the claim of not meaning to be simply goes to show the lengths our brains will go to protect the ego. Mental gymnastics.
My problem becomes:
Why didn’t you mean TO be careful? to be courteous? to be conscious and conscientious? Our entire society is plagued by this: the failure to proactively take care. You don’t HAVE to make things better, but – for goodness sake – don’t make them worse.
It makes me wonder about the status of the social contract during such a time when personal responsibility has such a dubious nature…