My son and daughter-in-law live in Houston. I can’t even watch the news or I’ll send myself down a rabbit’s hole of worry. They are safe and relatively dry as I write this, so they are among the lucky ones. I can’t even imagine the terror of those living closer to the water.
As I walked along the river barely flowing behind my apartment building (a river that flooded not all that long ago), I notice how low it is. It is so low that I could see the legs of a Canadian Goose as it stood in the water. I thought how ironic it is that we need water and Houston needs to get rid of theirs. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just get everything to even out a bit more?
Which made me think about other things in life that are out of balance. It wasn’t something I had to ponder for long to come up with examples.
No one said life was fair, yet I keep expecting it to be. I keep believing that one day people will come to their senses, that our climate woes will be reversed, and that the people of the world can and will live in harmony. Yes, I’m a dreamer and eternal optimist.
I also have just enough cynicism to realize how ridiculously naïve my thinking can be. And it was in this “realistic” mindset that I came to a newly revised conclusion: Life is NOT fair, and that is precisely why we are here.
My guiding life principal has been “Start Where You Are and Move Forward”. It’s a philosophy that has two parts: Assessment and Action. To do one without the other is futile. It fits perfectly with my new conclusion as well. If we do the assessment, we are confronted with many, many examples to show us that life is indeed not fair. Enter the second part of the philosophy: “What are you going to do about it?”
Let me pause here, because I can already feel the overwhelm and anxiety rising up in some of you. Or see the eye-rolling begin. But hear me out: I didn’t say “how are YOU going to fix it?” or “how are you going to make it go away?” The philosophy states “…and move forward”, which prompts the question “What are you going to do about it?” In other words, what next step will you take? How can you help move the situation forward in a positive manner? Maybe it’s as simple as sending up a prayer. Maybe it’s being open to ideas. Maybe it’s sending off a check, or volunteering. Or making a change in your life, your thoughts, your actions. Maybe it’s just becoming more conscious.
Maybe that’s why we’re here. We need each other. We need to take actions. We need to help move this world forward.
Life is messy. We are here to polish it up, put back the pieces, send it in a new direction. When one person learns this, they pass it on to another, and so on. It’s who we are. It’s what we do.
We got this. Pass it on.