What do YOU get offended by?

Scientists have discovered that bees drink human tears. No kidding. Here's the whole article. I find this fascinating for several reasons. The first being, how did these sciencey-types come up with this idea? They're having a convo after a hard day at the lab, perhaps with beer in hand. "Hey, have you ever wondered if bees drink tears?"

Why yes, Bob. I have. Let's get some crying people together . . . .

So just the idea of it, is pretty funny. But, in addition to reading about the study, is the comments that people have left. They range from v. funny:

You can tell that I'm sad because of the bees in my eyes.

"imbibed tears for 0.5-2.5 min, often singly but occasionally in congregations of 5-7 specimens per eye."

WHO LETS THIS HAPPEN?

to random:

It annoys me that people still used "man" to refer to humans, both women and men.

And then! It becomes a feminist argument about language instead of beer-drinking, I mean, tear-drinking bees. Really; read the comments. And I get it, I really do. We're ignoring an entire gender; my gender specifically. But it's an article about bees. Drinking tears.

Some people are waiting to be offended. You know what's funny? It's easy for me to recognize when other people take things so literally and seriously that they don't have a sense of humour about something. It's funny when it's other people who get their panties in a twist. Until . . .

Someone disses chiropractors. Grrrrr! That's when John will kindly point out that I have a burr in my saddle.

Or a bee in my bonnet. But I'm not sticking around to let it drink my tears. ;-)

P.S. For those of you who will point out the preposition lollygagging at the end of my post title--you know who you are. I am well aware of the rule and remember it everytime I break it. With glee. It's my version of sticking it to the Grammar MAN.

Offended

I have had the occassion this week to offend a few people, especially with Monday's post. And in turn, I have been offended--sometimes in response to offending someone. But this a.m. I woke up thinking about all this. One of don miguel ruiz's 4 agreements is not to take anything personally. A person's behaviour is theirs, not yours. It is easier to look at a 2-year-old having a tantrum and recognize it as such, than to see it in an adult. Both behaviours are a pattern. As adults we get caught up in the content of a behaviour, instead of looking at the pattern. Cue Dave Dobson: At one time this pattern had a purpose and got a desired outcome. What worked for you at age 5, may not be a useful response as an adult. I wonder if you can get curious about updating those patterns....

Back to being offended: The question is, Who is being offended? Not the me that is connected to universal consciousness. It's the ego-me that needs to be right--and self-righteous. Even if I'm interpreting a behaviour as "mean," even if the intent from the person is to be mean, it doesn't matter. What matters is my response to the situation: how much emotional energy am I going to waste on this? How am I going to respond? Sometimes the best response, is no response. In that place of stillness, where there is no separation, what does it matter? It doesn't.

Eckhart Tolle said on Monday's webinar with Oprah that you can't force enlightenment on someone. You can fill-in-the-blank with enlightement. You can't force an opinion, a feeling, an idea. We all have our own lessons to learn. We all have our patterns to outgrow. Or not.

P.S. I am venturing out into the world this weekend so will most likely not be posting til Monday. Have a GREAT weekend!

P.P. S. Today is the LAST DAY to enter The Grasshopper's drawing for lots of cool *free* stuff from John Morgan! GO SEE.