Like many of us, I woke up on Tuesday morning hearing about the Manchester attacks and feeling absolutely helpless. I felt broken and emotional. How could anyone do that? Lives were taken and kids too. When someone innocent loses their life you feel it, but when it’s children you can’t even process it. In one instant your whole world can be changed. The parents, the families, the victims, and the countless other lives that will never be the same again. Tragic doesn’t even cut it. There are no words.
I found myself as a blogger judging other content creators. I had a post scheduled for that evening, but I decided to move it to next week. It felt insignificant. It wasn’t important. It didn’t matter. People were hurting and my post had no relevance. In the grand scheme of things, it was nothing. To post it felt inconsiderate. Lives have been torn apart and to click publish felt like I was just carrying on as usual as if to say what had happened didn’t matter. I found myself judging others for carrying on as normal. I understood that people want to stand united and not let hatred win, but it felt (in my emotional state) heartless. To not acknowledge what had happened made me mad.
Every time I saw another post from someone who had not yet mentioned Manchester I questioned my faith in humanity. I kept thinking “why aren’t they talking about it, why are they just posting another pointless photo or blog post”. I wondered if they even cared. Where was their compassion? Where was their love for the people of Manchester in another self-indulgent post? I felt anger and sadness all rolled into one.
Their ignorance astounded me. How could they not stop for one moment and realise the importance of showing love? How could they not see that business as usual looks cold heartened? Yes, think of the future. Yes, we must never let anyone stop us from showing up, but what’s more important is the now. It’s the only thing ever guaranteed.
I soon came to realise my ignorance too. People hurt and cope in different ways. There is no right or wrong way to deal with tragedy. My way is no more enlightened than anyone else’s. My judgment was misplaced. I have no idea what people were thinking or feeling. People don’t always know how to think, act and comprehend it all. Emotions were high. Sometimes people simply don’t know what to say. People are scared to look like they’ve jumped on the bandwagon. We all judge and become judged sometimes. This isn’t the time for that. Now is the time to be more loving. To be kinder to ourselves and others. To love more deeply.
Kindness makes more of a difference than you’ll ever know. We all know action speaks louder than words. So act with love. Be the light in the darkness. Help those that struggle. Judge less. Love more. Be the one to say sorry. Life is short so don’t waste it not being loving. Hold your loved ones tighter and when you feel helpless and don’t know what to do just show up with love.
To support the victims of the Manchester Attacks there is a donation page here ♥.
It was brave of you to talk about this, a lot of feelings happened that day! Sending love
♥
I must admit I went through and cancelled all my scheduled social stuff the following day. Like you, it felt wrong to just carry on.
Yeah, it’s hard to know what’s best to do but that’s what felt right for me too 😊
I really relate to this post, I think there is often a lot of judging when something like this goes on, especially amongst bloggers or on social media. The sad truth is, terrorism happens every single day across the world and it would be impossible to put our lives on hold to talk about it all of the time. I think we should all respect each other and accept that we all deal with things differently.
Yes it’s so important respect how everyone deals with things differently 💗
I rescheduled posts for that day and didn’t post anything. I didn’t want be insensitive. But then I didn’t post about it either as I thought it would just look like jumping on the bandwagon for likes. An I love Manchester photo fir 100 likes if you know what I mean. I do understand where you’re coming from though. we all dealt with this differently.
yeah definitely, I learnt my lesson that’s for sure.
I judged as well, but then I was judged for feeling angry at other people. You really can’t win with something like this, but I do feel some people are so single minded about their own needs that they don’t think about what’s appropriate. I was paying for something at a service station as a 2 minute silence started. I couldn’t believe the amount of people who got cross about having to wait for the cashiers. I think it’s absolutely ok to judge people like that.
so sorry you experienced this x