I wrote this post yesterday morning, because I knew that we would be out early for one of my daughter’s tennis events. After I wrote my post, I read this article/interview (see below). I continue to be in awe of the Zelenskys and all of the Ukrainian people. I love this quote from Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, taken from the article and I just had to share it:
Madam First Lady, given everything that is going on, how are you and your family holding up?
“It’s like walking a tightrope: If you start thinking how you do it, you lose time and balance. So, to hold on, you just must go ahead and do what you do. In the same way, as far as I know, all Ukrainians hold on. Many of those who escaped from the battlefields alone, who saw death, say the main cure after the experience is to act, to do something, to be helpful for somebody. I am personally supported by the fact that I try to protect and support others. Responsibility disciplines.“
I think Olena Zelenska is spot on with this. I love the comparison to a tightrope. When you are in the middle of a ongoing crisis, I think the last thing you should do, is to get your head wrapped up in thinking about all of the details and “what ifs” and the extremes of the crisis which you are currently weathering. I always follow ODAT (One Day at a Time), and even sometimes, “one minute at at time” when I am going through something extremely difficult.
Here is the rest of the article. It is an excellent read:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/europe/olena-zelenska-ukraine-first-lady-amanpour-cmd-intl/index.html
And here is my original post for today:
“Intelligent people are those who agree with you.” – Alan Cohen
We all think that how we specifically think about things, or how we view things, is what is right. We know the right way of how to do everything. We know the right way for everybody to do life right. We are shocked when other people see things differently or don’t handle things the way we think they should (“should” being another troublesome word). Don’t these people know what is right? We see this again and again on political forums, where conservatives and liberals go in circles, trying desperately to prove to the others just how right they are about things. And of course, we watch these scenarios and we sigh, and we think to ourselves the old adage, “Would you rather be right, or be happy?” If we changed the question to “What is right for me?” we avoid the going around in the pointless circles. We save ourselves a lot of grief. And it is even better if we tweak the question to, “What is right for me, right now?” Because, as those of us who are in our second half of life have dearly learned, often what was right for us at one time, often changes to something different, down the line.
Now, you may think, “Well murder isn’t right. Most people agree with that statement.” Of course murder isn’t right. Or is murder right in self-defense? Is murder right during wartime? Is murder right when it comes to capital punishment? Is abortion murder? I don’t want to debate these questions here on my blog. This type of debate will never be the purpose of my blog. The point that I’m making is that “right” is a nebulous subject.
We belong to societies where the rules and laws are created and enforced either by force, imposed by a dictatorship (who has decided what is right for their subjects), or by a democracy, in which what is considered right and enforceable by laws and punishments, is determined by a majority. And these determinations often change over time. What was right for one era in time, no longer fits. (Look at how many states have legalized marijuana usage in recent years.)
Which brings me to the second question that we should remove from our vernacular. “Is this normal? This question is better asked in this way, “Is this healthy?” In years past, it was normal for smokers to smoke in their cars with their windows rolled up. So what if this was “normal”? We all know that smoking, in any condition, is not healthy. This is much like the old question so many of us heard from our parents growing up, “If everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you do it, too?” It might have been normal for all of our teenage friends to be “jumping off bridges”, but is “jumping off bridges” healthy? In short don’t worry about being “normal”, worry about being “healthy.”
In the natural world, there are no definitions of what is right or wrong, or good or bad, or even normal or healthy. In the natural world, you do an action and there are consequences to your actions. It is as simple as that, and not really complicated at all. If you walk in front of a raging bull, you are likely to get trampled. Even if you are a moral vegan and you have never, ever eaten one bite of beef, if the bull is angry and you are in his way, you will get trampled. And you might think, “Wow, that wasn’t right for that bull to trample me! I’m a vegan and a champion of animal rights!” And nature replies, “A bull is a bull. Getting trampled is a natural consequence of getting in front of a raging bull.”
The beauty of tweaking these two pointed questions in your life, is that you get to decide what is right and healthy for you, with the understanding that you will bear the consequences of any of these decisions that you choose to make. You get to choose what you do, but you do not get to choose how people react to what you do, nor do you get to choose what other people think or do in their lives. You do not need others to decide for you, nor to validate your choices of what is right and healthy for you to do. You don’t need anyone’s permission to live what you deem to be a rightful and a healthy life. And they don’t need your permission or validation, to live what they see to be right or healthy for themselves. In short, as my grandmother loved to preach, it is best to “tend to your own knitting.”
Anytime you are stuck in a quandary these are your best “go-to” questions to ask yourself. “In this situation, what is the right thing for me to do, for me, right now? And secondly, “Is what I am doing a healthy choice for me?” Trust that these are the only questions that you are responsible to answer for, which will bring about various consequences for yourself, and for your own life. The rest of it all, is not yours to concern yourself about, and is out of your control anyway. Save yourself undue grief. Don’t have concern about being “right” or “normal”. Follow your own intrinsic moral code, and make healthy choices, and you will do just fine.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.