who gets offended?

lately i have been hearing about a lot, i mean a lot of people getting offended. by the silliest things. i am seriously appalled about this. small little things are making people crazy. not only that but people are scarred to talk cuz they are scared of offending others. i was on the phone the other day with a friend of mine and was a bit tired. a couple days later when i talked to him at church he was really worried that he had offended me some how and he really couldn't figure out how. just because i didn't sound normally happy on the phone. Not because there is something wrong with him, but because this is a near universal problem.
so here is my spin on it. when i was a young man, like 9 years ago, i this is what i decided. and i decided this on the basis of what i have felt personally and recognized in myself. i truly think that the only reason a person is offended is that some one found out something about them. i believe that most people somewhere deep down know all of their short comings and try very hard to hide them from themselves and everyone else. and to some extent feel a guilty about those things. so when another person finds out one of these safely guarded secrets, the person try what he/she can to keep that hidden.
finding out the truth about some one that doesn't want you to know it is about the only thing i can think of that would get them to the state of being offended. personally i believe if you are the type of person that gets offended easily, you are giving to much power to other people over your life. think about that for a moment before you get to offended. if you get on my blog and are offended for one minute, you have just given me complete control over you life for that moment. how much worse is that if you are offended for a whole week end. personally that is a power that i absolutely refuse to give to someone else other than me.
i happen to believe that people who do get offended are most likely looking for a reason to feel like a victim of some sort. to get some kinda of sympathy or something.
there was a point in my life when i decided to try to get rid of all my favorite sins and that i didn't care who found out about them. not saying i have been successful, i still have many imperfections. but i don't cry about people knowing them.
now i have spoken just about truth. what about people saying things about you that are not true. (witch i think is rare after high school) who cares! let them tell lies, i don't care about lies about someone else or about me. water off a ducks back. if someone is saying or writing lies about you... really who cares! there are far more important things to do than cry about a silly lie!
in short the mind is an amazing thing, and guess what, you can control it. if we are sad, we can tell ourselves to be happy. if we are tempted with something bad, we can stop an walk away. there are always choices in life. we don't have to choose to be mad or offended if something we don't agree with comes across our path. we can choose to just be happy. my three year old has figured that out. i think if he can do it we all can do it.