No tolerance

Isn't it strange how much it is possible to like something that is not good for us?

All kinds of things!  Like pie and ice cream, fancy shoes, pets that I am allergic to, even people.

I keep going back to these things until, like the fancy shoes, the damage they do is nearly irreparable.  Finally when I can no longer walk and miss out on weeks of fun I begin to get the message.

No one else can really keep an adult from doing things that are wrong.  Like Ray Rice, the football player who hit his fiancee in the elevator.  I don't know which I find more appalling; that he hit her, or that she married him afterwards.  I do know that both of them must have rationalized why it was okay until the world saw it and was horrified.  I suspect they are both still rationalizing in private.

I'd like to think I'm smarter than that, but the allure of a mean person can be huge.  It has to be.  Otherwise no one would have anything to do with them.  Money, status, neediness, all these things draw in good people like moths are drawn to a flame.  At the very least, we believe we are going to be the one to make a change.  Each victim believes her situation is unique until one day she finds herself immolated by the very one she was going to save.

It shouldn't take an entire football league, or court system to stand between a abuser and a victim, because most people aren't lucky enough to have that be a possibility.  Each of us has the responsibility for a no tolerance stand when we see it occurring.