Not Enough.

I am a person who is frequently annoyed.  I am opinionated, brusque in those opinions, and thoughtful.  I may not be many other things- or I may be loads of other, less pleasant things- but I am certainly those.

Once, for example, when I was living in China, I nearly launched a computer out of the kitchen window.  This bout of potent potential violence came in the wake of an article I read about Congress removing Grey Wolves from the Endangered Species list largely because some wealthy elk farmer, somewhere in the Northern MidWest, had the ear (wallet) of a Senator and apparently did not like his herd becoming prey.

News Flash, Old MacDonald, wolves eat elk.  Normally for subsistence purposes.  So get over it.  The other 5,000 animals on your farm are fine and the four that are serving as lupine feasts, well, that's that.  There are 1500 Grey Wolves left in North America- at least there were when Congress gave them the axe from the list.  If there were 1500 people left in the wild, elk farmers notwithstanding, we'd probably eat and elk or two to survive.

Don't fret.  The computer survived.  The table it was sitting on did as well.  My throat, having yelled at said computer for a solid hour, was less lucky.  Amongst other thins.

Onward, now.  I am constantly learning, my awareness evolving as information is presented to me- as arguments are won and/or lost.  So my annoyance is a fluid thing, my opinions changeable within reason.

There is one thing, however, that never ceases to fry my brain... ever.  And that is inconsiderateness (that might not be a word, but I'm going for it because I can).  Inconsiderateness.  It's like the rich man's unsubtle-yet-can't-be-bothered version of cruelty.  And the thing is, I know I've been inconsiderate to people.  I know I've done it heaps of times to heaps of people.  I know I've been ungrateful and pissy and bitchy.  In fact... I, Kathrine Seyfried, confess right here, right now- I am not the nicest person on the face of the Earth.  Not even close.

And that's okay.

Because I'm not constantly inconsiderate.  I'm not consistently cruel.  I have, though, been on the back end of both of those things.  And whether I'm callous or adult enough to have reached the "I don't care phase," I really don't care.  I don't take it personally, I take it opinionatedly.  And it annoys the ever loving bejesus out of me.  Honestly, how much time does it take to stop and think "hey now, what if... hmmm?"

The answer is- not enough.  Not enough time to NOT stop and think about someone else's feelings- what they might think about that email or that text or that story told about them in their absence.  Again- I am NOT absolving myself of anything, I could take the exact same second to do the exact same thing.  And hopefully, having preached and ranted here for a little while, I will do it much more often in the future.

Hopefully.