u/Busy_Quantity2947

It really bothers me when people say that it’s a choice to be offended because it’s a natural inevitable human emotion if something grinds your gears. If someone spread rumors about you or your loved ones or was being racist or saying hurtful things to upset you, of course any person would inevitably take offense and be hurt despite not admitting it. That’s also an example of how offense can be given sometimes. The literal definition of offended in the merriam Webster dictionary is “to cause (a person or group) to feel hurt, angry, or upset by something said or done” so being offended is certainly not a choice no matter how much people stretch the definition of offended. You can’t argue against the dictionary, facts don’t care about your feelings. You can’t control if you feel offended by something, but you can control how you react to it and how you act on it. You can brush it off if it’s something trivial or if it’s a difference in opinion. It’s a problem if you get offended to the point that you try to cancel someone or a company for having a different opinion than you. For example people trying to cancel American Eagle for having Sydney Sweeney advertise their jeans with the “good jeans” play on words because they thought it was racist and are now trying to cancel her for being Republican. Also people getting offended over Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben due to racial stereotypes of black people cooking during BLM that the protests and blm movement caused them to take them off their products and rebrand them. The takeaway from this is you can’t choose how you feel and if you feel offended but you can choose how to react to it and process those emotions. Just don’t let it turn you into the worst version of yourself