I like to think I don’t have many pet peeves, I like to think of myself as a pretty tolerant person, and I like to think that I am pretty level-headed. Sure, everyone has their days, and I’m no exception to that rule. With all this in mind, there is one thing that drives me positively up the wall (to put it in nice terms). I can’t stand when people don’t care. Let me explain.
Math is not my favorite subject. I’ve never been that good at it and it’s very difficult for me. While I do not like it, that doesn’t mean that I would loudly bemoan the fact that I hate the class so much, distracting other students in the process. One of the reasons I refrain from doing this is because there might be someone in my class who loves math, and I would be belittling their passion.
High school band is another a good example of this. There were several people who would talk loudly (and I mean they were in the back row and I was in the front row and I could hear them perfectly) while my director was talking. Really? The world does not revolve around you, there are some people who actually care about what they have to say!
Another facet to this is when people poke fun at a certain hobby. An area that seems to get a lot of heat in that department is cosplay or something that is “inherently geeky” like anime. If these things bring people joy, why should you care? It’s really none of your business, especially if you don’t know them personally.
Yeah, I don’t like football, but I would never call football players “meatheads” or criticize them for wasting their time on a sport. Of course if I did this, I would receive instant heat, because that’s just how life works. Not many people have a problem with the stereotype of “band geeks” except the people that are “band geeks” (which, by the way, is a term I wear proudly). Since the dawn of time, we’ve had these themes of popularity, the football quarterback and the head cheerleader, the nerdy music kids, etc.
It’s 2017 people, why haven’t these changed? You should do what you want, of course, but why do people keep limiting others to stereotypes? I know that there are some logistical problems with this, for example, a kid in marching band couldn’t be a football quarterback because these activities were conflict. But, if you love something enough, you’ll always find a way to do it, no matter the struggle.
I hope that this piece opened your eyes a little bit, maybe you have your own stereotype that you would like to break. I encourage you to do it with all the energy you have and to not worry about picking up the pieces. After all, there’s plenty of room in this world for a little bit more of diversity.