Positive Foundations

This is the season of Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward All Men. Regardless of your religious faith or tradition, or even of culture, this is a season mankind has long set aside to celebrate inner peace and the hope that it would spread to global peace as well.

Altogether this is not a bad thing. It is a foundation we can build upon. Getting to the personal side of this discussion, I know my inner feelings. I don’t always give myself time to ponder their depth and breadth, but I should; to better understand them and maybe use them to further build upon the foundation of understanding of others, for others.

Maya Angelou shares this thought with us:

            “People will forget what you said,

             People will forget what you did,

             But people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Perhaps you've seen a video on YouTube from Life Vest Inside called “Kindness Boomerang One Day” in which a construction worker helps a boy get up from a spill on his skateboard, and the lad goes on to help an elderly woman cross the street with two bags of groceries. In turn the woman gives coins for a young lady’s parking meter and she goes on to pick up a dropped document returning it to the pedestrian who lost it. And on this sequence goes until a well tipped waitress brings an unbidden glass of ice water to the same construction worker who started the ‘pay it forward’ sequence.

One positive act of kindness encourages a string of actions, all kindnesses for others. A positive view of life. One that is infectious. And one which can be practiced every day throughout the entire year. Positive. Foundational. Spirit uplifting.

As Maya Angelou stated, these people will remember how you made them feel. Respected. Of value. Like yourself.

From this basic statement come actions only we are responsible for. Those actions let loose a series of other actions, all good. They are the foundation of the positive. They can and do make a difference in our own life as well as in the lives of others.

At this special time of year we acknowledge the horror of the Connecticut elementary school massacre. In addition to the 20 innocent lives of 6 and 7 year-olds with entire futures of hope snuffed out, we also celebrate the lives of the teaching staff that lost their lives, 6 talented professionals dedicated to developing the minds and spirits of children. They were also dedicated to the safety of their students, and died living that commitment.

Two others died that day connected to the awful event. The shooter, himself a relative youth (20 years old), took his own life as responders closed in on him. His mother was brutally shot several times at their home prior to his going to the school. 28 lives taken during one event.

Our nation will struggle with this historic happening. But two facts will haunt our thoughts: first, the enormous cost of mental illness in the first place, and the geometrically enlarged cost of mental illness if it is not effectively addressed; and second, the inevitable presence of guns in our culture.

Of the former fact, America has increasingly de-institutionalized mental illness as it pushes the frontier of medicinal treatment for the disease. Problem is: the patient is not always responsible and fails to take the prescribed meds. Who then is left to monitor the patient and his/her actions? We still institutionalize the violent mentally ill patients, at least for a while, to keep safe others around them. But soon they are released into an unsuspecting population where chance lives large that an episode of mental disturbance will lead to violent action against self or others.

What ought we to do about this situation? And who would best be responsible for taking responsibility for appropriate actions? And what are the appropriate actions? We have a problem to address. Let’s do it, please.

And the gun issue. It is time America has ‘the conversation’ about this issue. No yelling or fear or trembling or self righteousness, please. Just the facts. What is the problem. What is the desired outcome we seek. How best can we achieve those objectives. And who among us has the ideas that will lead us all to a satisfactory solution?

Those who politicize this conversation are to be shunned. Silenced. Their outcry is not helpful to the solution. Calm reasoning is needed.

Let’s keep this a positive process and pay it forward to all who come after us. We owe them this legacy.

From the internet comes this anonymous quote that I will close this post with:

            “Entire water of the sea  can’t sink a ship unless

             It gets inside the ship.

             Similarly, negativity of the world

             Can’t put you down

             Unless you allow it to get inside you.”

December 18, 2012