Everywhere you look people are fed up. Fed up with the president. Fed up with protesters. Fed up with refugees. Fed up with rednecks. Fed up with the press. Fed up with social media.
Everybody, including me, is fed up with something. I'm fed up with everybody being fed up.
America has always been a fed up nation. Most of the people who came here came because they were fed up with the way things were at home. Tyranny, famine, poverty and violence are never things anyone should have to digest.
Then there are those who didn't exactly volunteer to come to our shores, or were here before that Italian guy "discovered" them. Both of those populations were forced pretty hard diets to swallow. They certainly have the right to be fed up, too.
There are real things every American should always be fed up with.
We've been fed up about something throughout our history and a lot of the progress this country has made is a result. But not always. Americans fed up with things don't always yield positive results.
One spin-off of the fed up chromosome in our national DNA is the terminally outraged. The numbers of those miserable types seem to be multiplying exponentially in our society. The biggest problem with those types is reality be damned, it's anything to obliterate the source of their outrage.
For some, terminal outrage has become very, very profitable. Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, Glenn Beck, Keith Olberman and many others got rich spewing at the fed up.
The terminally outraged can come from any part of the political spectrum. Hence, one of the favorite pastimes of the terminally outraged is to make fun of the outrage emanating from their political opposites.
It's like watching someone make fun of themselves in a mirror. It used to be fun, but not anymore. Because now there are more of them and they're just as outraged that you aren't contorting yourself into the same spasms of angst.
That makes it really hard for those of us who are a bit more selective with our exasperation. Or have no clue what it is you're outraged about today.
It's getting hard to leave the house. I know, somewhere in my routine, I'm going to run into somebody with a bone to pick over something. Nothing new there. But if I don't exhibit the same ire about whatever said person is butt-hurt about, then I must be for whatever he, she, or it is chewing on.
Somebody's probably going to be outraged about that last sentence. Too bad. There's nothing there to get bent over.
There are things going on in our country to be fed up with. But way too many people are fed up over things that have nothing to do with them. If you're outraged that folks say "black lives matter", you need a vacation. If you're outraged that some guy has a rebel flag flying over his mobile home, you should get a grip.
If you're so fed up with something, maybe the best thing to do is just stop consuming.