You aren’t .
Suspend what you feel and trust me. There are other people around you — sometimes, too many of them.
Like me, you’ve probably at least once in your life (possibly at age 6) suspected that the world stops spinning when you close your eyes.
It does not.
People continue to do the things that people do even when you are not in the room. They type, cook, sit, stand, do math, make out, paint their nails, etc., etc.
The fact that there are other people with their other concerns, thoughts and opinions makes the world interesting.
How sad of a place it would be if everyone typed the same, cooked the same, sat the same, stood the same, did math the same, made out the same, painted their nails the same, etc., etc.
How boring a place this Earth would be if it revolved around one special sun named You.
It is easy to forget about all the other people in the world, but that doesn’t mean they vanish.
Nope, still there typing and cooking, sitting, etc. etc.
AMELIA ROBINSON: You or I could be a victim of the next mass shooting
• You may think the singer at the concert is singing only for you.
He’s not, and you should probably not stand up and block everyone else’s view. Sit as a group. Stand as a group.
• You might think your kid is the only kid who deserves a good education.
He or she isn’t.
All kids deserve a shot at their best possible life. We invest now or we pay later.
• You might think you deserve to park in the handicapped spot because it is you.
You don’t.
Ask yourself if you are disabled and if you have the proper tag. Park somewhere else if the answers to both of those questions are “no.”
• Speeding on the highway and intimidating other drivers “Fast and the Furious”-style might sound like something you should be able to do.
AMELIA ROBINSON: A few declarations to help you stay calm
It is not. You are surely very, very important, but you are not the only one who has somewhere to go and people who hope you arrive there safe and sound.
• Placing blame on other people sounds like a reasonable thing to do, because come on, how could you ever do anything wrong?
You can. You ain't the only person in the world and you ain't perfect. No one is.
All these things may be hard to take, but trust me on this one, they are true. Facts are sometimes a hard pill to swallow, but every now and again, we all need to take our medicine.
Don’t blame me. I am not the only person in the room and the world does not revolve around me, but please take my word for it.
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