Years ago, I frequented a gaming website's message board.  There was a particular character there who posted regularly.  His posts were often well thought out, eloquent, and quite entertaining to read.  He was easily one of the most popular members.

However, he also had a habit of becoming rather fierce when discussing political issues. 

Due to his status as a respected, long time member, he got away with murder.  There was a very strict "no personal attacks" rule in place, which I saw pulled out to ban numerous people.  Yet this one poster would make the same sorts of attacks, just using more flowery language.  Frankly, I got sick of it, and finally called him out on it.  The admins intervened and decided that, yes, he had in fact crossed the line and broken the rule.  He was given a brief "break" from the site (something along the lines of a 5 day temporary ban).

In a fit of righteous indignation he "stomped" off and never frequented the forum again.

I then discovered something interesting.  This was not the first time such an occurrence had happened.  As I frequented other message boards I would see his name mentioned, only to discover he had been banned as well.  There were at least 5 or 6 major gaming websites that this chap had been banned from for the exact same sort of thing.  This led to a realization:

If it seems the world is out to get you, perhaps the problem isn't with the world.

The global communication of the internet allows us all to interact and communicate with more people than ever before.  In this time, I have heard more "woe is me" stories than I ever would have thought possible.  There are some truly pathetic individuals out there.  Yet while some of them truly have just had some really awful luck, more often then not I have noticed the same as in the story above:

If everyone is out to get you, maybe the problem is you.

Call me naive, call me stupid, call me whatever you want.  The truth is, I just can't believe that all these people are "innocent" victims of circumstance.  We are masters of our own destiny.  We reap what we sow.  And while it sucks some times, I can look back on my life and see a correlation between harder times and my own poor choices. 

Of course, this sort of self-assessment is painful.  Likely this is why it is just so unpopular.  It hurts a bit.  Bit I swear by it.  If it seems that the whole world has turned against you, maybe it is time to look in the mirror.