Acceptance (In Today's World)

Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgement of the facts
of a situation, then deciding what you're going to do about it.
-Kathleen Casey Theisen


I'll be very honest--it's become very difficult to accept the things that are happening in the United States these days.  The masked "law-enforcement" officers, the deportations of people who don't deserve to be deported, the pardoning of scores of guilty people who were given fair trials--the list goes on and on, and it's getting worse and worse.  And the unjustified murder of an unarmed woman in Minnesota seems to be the next step in the escalation of actions and policies designed to sow chaos and disorder, to pit people against each other on political and ideological bases, and to keep people from trusting anyone, anywhere.

But accept these things we must, because until we acknowledge the truth that things are not going to go back to how they used to be, we'll never be able to move forward, away from the awful things that are going on.

No matter how much we don't want to admit it, the current situations in this world make it impossible to go back to any sort of "good old days."  We may want to say things like "There's no way that I'll accept a killing in Minnesota," but when one says such a thing, then one is talking about denial, not ethics or morals.  If anything is going to change in this world, then the current facts must be accepted as a first step towards change.  Things are as they are, and pretending they aren't happening is to sabotage any chance for healthy change.

Accepting the fact that a woman was killed in her car while doing nothing wrong does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that you somehow condone the action.  It does not mean that you support the people who did it.  It doesn't mean that you don't care about it.  It simply means that you're willing to say "Yes, this did happen."  "Yes, I live in a country in which a man wearing a uniform is allowed to kill anyone he wants without facing any repercussions so far, and who is actually defended by many people in positions of power."

And acknowledging that fact along with all the other horrible things going on means that we're aware of them, and that we know that change has to come from the place we're at, not from the place we wish we were.  Alcoholics can't really start to overcome their alcoholism until they accept the fact that they're alcoholics.  Until I accept the fact that the kitchen faucet is broken, I can't fix it.  And when I do work on it, I undertake the job knowing that it's broken, not hoping that it's going to miraculously fix itself and be as good as it was last year at this time.

Acceptance is often very difficult.  Right now, it's very hard for me to accept that the country I've lived in for many decades is no longer the same country as it was when I was a kid--opportunities for everyone have dried up as the wealth disparities grow more and more pronounced, and the spending power of the money we earn shrinks regularly.  The amount of debt that young people have to rack up in order to get a college education cripples them, and simply sabotages their futures.  The young people I know today simply don't have the opportunities ahead of them that they would have had at the same age forty years ago.  These are simple facts, and I can't ignore them or deny their importance.

But I still hope for change.  I hope for improvement.  I know that it can't come from me, for I have no real influence on any policies or policy makers, but I accept the fact that I can't affect things directly, and I still try to affect things indirectly as much as I can.  I've taught for almost forty years because I've wanted to do all I can to help young people to know things that would help them in life, and I can keep on teaching, hoping to help people to see directions they can go and methods they can use to bring about change themselves.  I accept my limitations because I know that I can still accomplish something, but I don't waste my time or energy doing things that won't have any effect at all.

Acceptance is not submission.  Acceptance is strength, acceptance is clear-headedness, and acceptance is awareness.  Acceptance is one of the first things that has to happen before any change can be implemented, and it's one of the most important elements of our lives.

'Tis the Season (In Today's World)

For me, the spirit of Christmas is about
letting the loving but messy little rituals
become just as important as the solemn
and graceful ones.  It's about making
room for everyone.   -Ann Michael


It's going to be difficult this year, I think, to celebrate Christmas without having the thought in the back of my mind that celebrations are somehow inappropriate or out of place.  After all, the world is going through so many challenges now that make things seem almost hopeless.  The war that Russia started in the Ukraine drags on, while people are still dying.  The conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians continue to claim lives, while militants in African nations have killed over 20,000 people this year.  The US is continuing to kill people on boats near Venezuela, and is indicating that war may be imminent.  Millions of families have been devastated by poverty and illegal ICE detentions and layoffs.  The list could go on for the rest of this page, it seems.

But so this is Christmas.  'Tis the season of peace and love and joy, or at least it's supposed to be for Christians.  Unfortunately, many Christians in the United States have become radicalized, and they've warped the main messages that Jesus taught:  Love one another, help one another, be kind to one another.  This new dynamic most definitely does diminish the message of Christmas, unless we're able to separate those people who have adopted radical and inappropriate interpretations of Christian teaching and the Bible from the holiday itself, which can still stand as a beacon of hope and love and even joy.

My Christmas is going to be separate from the radical, hate-filled messages of the people who aren't able to separate their politics from their religion.  If I'm to celebrate Christmas properly, then I need to focus on love and compassion, on others and their needs.  And I need to make sure that I take advantage of my personal situations in order to make the most of them--I'm not going to be able to celebrate love if all I do is focus on the negative things going on in the world.  I don't want to forget them, but I also can't let them bring me down.  If I were in a terrible situation myself, I would want people who weren't in the same situation as I to go on with their lives, and to live fully and take advantage of all they have available to them.

Which is not to say that I would fully understand someone who decides to "cancel" Christmas in solidarity with those who aren't able to celebrate because of life situations that have been pushed upon them by others.  Would the lack of celebration for just one year be a sign of giving up completely, of letting the world get us down?  Absolutely not.  It could be a very strong message to others that our commitment to other human beings is strong and that the well-being of others is just as important to me as my own well-being.  I know that there are people who are deciding to do just this, and I understand completely where they're coming from--they're not letting the world situations get them down; rather, they're standing strong in the face of those situations and doing what they feel is right, in their own way.

We're going to celebrate, because much of the rest of the world is going to celebrate.  We want to stand together with the people in the world who want to celebrate the ideas of love and kindness and giving and compassion.  I'll enjoy the lights and the music, and I'll give gifts to as many people as I can to show that I'm thinking about them and that they mean a lot to me.

Life is difficult right now for many, many people.  Life is difficult for me at the moment, but I still have things much, much better than millions of other people do.  And even in difficult times, I wouldn't want people who are in better situations to avoid celebrations that are legitimately worth celebrating.

So here's to celebrating a Christmas during which we focus on loving one another, and healing one another.  A Christmas during which we share kindness and caring for one another, and during which we celebrate the wonderful potential we all have to help others in this life, and to give all that we can to the other people who share this planet with us.  I wish you a very merry Christmas, and I hope that we all can work together to bring more love into the world in the hope that the love will drive out the hatred and fear and anger.

Sharing Compassion (in Today's World)

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
-Albert Einstein


In this age of division, is it possible that compassion is our key to somehow finding unity once more?  Some of our leaders want us to think that in order to end division, we must "defeat" those who disagree with us.  Others feel that the key to unity is finding common ground even among our division and disagreement, to acknowledge the rights that others have to think and feel as they do, to accept them and their thoughts, and to work together even when we disagree on some points.

Compassion is "feeling with" someone, trying to understand their actions and thoughts and motivations.  It's rather easy to feel compassion for someone who obviously deserves it--the person who's been injured, the friend who has lost their home, the someone who has been abused.  But when we can't easily see the actual sadness, when we don't know the sources of a person's problems, it can be much more difficult.  That person who is against what I'm for more than likely has had some very poor teachers in their life, people who taught them to hate and to resent rather than to love and respect.  And we don't know what led them to actually believe this teacher, to follow their advice.  But it's very possible that even though this person is doing bad things, they're in great pain themselves, and it may be that pain that's leading them to hate, to judge, to harm others.

Since we can never really know what's going on in another's life, it seems that the most effective approach we can take is to make compassion our default response.  That doesn't mean that we should accept and approve of all that other people do, but if we can act around them with compassion, then we can understand that their harmful actions may be the result of great pain in their lives, rather than character flaws or simply being "wrong" or "stupid."

Many people have received poor educations, and it would be unfair of us to judge their words or actions by the same standards that we would expect from someone who's been educated deeply and broadly.  Some people are so afraid of everything that they base their prejudices and biases on their fear, and not on anything concrete or even logical.  And most of them never realize just how much power they give to their own fears.

In a world in which it seems like compassion is dying, just who's going to keep it alive?  Well, I can, and you can.  We're not obligated to do so, of course, but compassion sure seems important enough to me that I want to do all that I can to make sure that it doesn't disappear completely from humanity.  I must foster it, maintain it, share it freely--even with those who don't "seem" to deserve it, and let it be a guiding force in my own life if I'm ever going to have the chance to call myself a "compassionate person."  And on the day that I die, that's a term that I hope more than one person uses to describe who I was when I was here.

Adding to the Positive (in Today's World)

The world needs huge positive energy to fight against
the negative forces. Go to the center of your inner begin
and generate that positive energy for the welfare
of humanity.    -Amit Ray


"The world needs."  Yes, it does.  And where is this positive energy going to come from, if it doesn't come from us?  Who is going to contribute to the world in positive ways if we don't?  Sometimes, though, it seems like an overwhelming task, something immense to ask of us when we're doing all we can just to get by.  How can my tiny bit of positive energy affect the world as a whole?  How can my optimistic words or actions help those people who are suffering greatly right now?

And because it's very easy to feel this way, to think that our thoughts or actions can't be helpful on a grand scale, we give up, and we simply plod through life, beaten down by the sheer overwhelmingness of the awful things that are happening to other people.

But the important thing to remember is that our positive actions don't have to affect the entire world.  They don't have to bring hope to millions of people.  We live in a large world, yes, but we also live in our own little worlds, surrounded by the people who share that world with us.  My world doesn't even consist of the town or city I live in--it consists of me and the people with whom I have contact, one way or another.  My obligation to the world is simply to do the best I can to help to expand positive energy in my world, and then trust that it will ripple out from there.

If I encourage a student today, then she may go home and do something positive for her little brother (whom I shall never meet), or her parents, or another student at school, simply because she feels more positive now.  And then, it's very possible that her positive action for her sister's sake will make her brother feel very good, and that he'll do something positive for someone else.

If I compliment someone who works in a store or a restaurant or in a public service position, then there's always the chance that the person will then "pass it on," complimenting or helping someone else in some way.

We're talking about ripples, about waves that expand from a central point and grow larger as they go, turning still water into moving water, just for a few moments.  We don't have to change the world--we just need to start a ripple, turn on one light switch, light one candle.  You can choose your own metaphor.

The world needs positive energy, especially during these rather dark days when people are reacting more to their fear than to their love, more to their anger than to their compassion.  And it's got to start somewhere, or it will never start at all.

Let it begin with us--you and me.  We can't change the world in one fell swoop, but we can contribute to the positive energy that this world so badly needs.

We Really Do Need Hope (in Today's World)

If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed.  But we
are more than logical.  We are human beings, and we
have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.   -Jacques Cousteau


In some ways, I've come close to losing my hope these days--and why wouldn't I?  In my country, the system of checks and balances that our government is supposedly based on has crumbled, and is completely failing the country now.  We have politicians who, because of superiority of numbers, are able to do virtually anything they please, without facing any consequences, for they've seen the flaws in the system and rather than fix those flaws, they exploit them, to the harm of all.  I'm watching people violate Constitutional law constantly while facing absolutely NO repercussions for doing so.  I'm seeing families torn apart while people pat each other on the back for having done so--even though no one in those families has done anything to deserve that fate.  It's depressing, and it's disheartening.  And to be completely honest, I believe it's all quite evil.

But I do hope.  I have the hope that things will turn eventually.  I don't know what it will take--a general or two to finally stand up and fulfill their vows to uphold the Constitution?  A group of people elected in the mid-terms who can turn the tide and help to keep the rule of law from being violated constantly?  I know in my heart, unfortunately, that we face the prospect of the entire country being sucked into an abyss of corruption and violation of law, but sometimes things have to be broken down completely in order to be rebuilt better.

My hope is that better times are ahead, especially for our young people, who don't deserve the obstacles that we've put in front of them by simply accepting all that happens in our government and in the business world.  I have hope that we can allow our humanity to shine in the ways that we spread kindness and love and compassion.  I have hope that we can work together, rather than yell at each other across a great divide.  I have hope that we shall overcome, and not submit.  I have hope that Love will find a way.

Kindness Can Still Go a Long Way (in Today's World)

Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care
and kindness of our parents.  And then later on in our life,
when we are oppressed by sickness and become old, we are
again dependent on the kindness of others.  And since at
the beginning and end of our lives, we are so dependent
on others' kindness, how can it be in the middle
that we neglect kindness towards others?

the Dalai Lama


We see and feel a whole lot of negative energy in the world today--so much so that it's practically overwhelming.  I often find myself thinking that with so much hatred and anger and malice and prejudice constantly being shown right before our eyes, how can we possibly do anything in our own small ways that will make any sort of difference?  And when that happens to me, I remind myself that my responsibility isn't to change the world--it's to affect in positive ways the worlds that I live in--the world of my family, the world of my friends, the world of my workplace.  And in that world, I can contribute to the positive energy very simply by being kind.  If someone angers me, I can show patience and kindness; if someone is feeling down, I can give encouraging words; if someone has a particular need, I can meet that need, or teach that someone how to meet that need themselves; if someone's feeling lonely or isolated, I can give them a small and simple gift--even a simple candy bar can be a wonderful gift.  There are many, many ways that I can be kind, many ways that I can contribute to the positive energy of this world we live in.

My kindness, of course, isn't going to fix the world.  It isn't going to cause authoritarian regimes to crumble, and it isn't going to fix the lives of families that have been terribly harmed by unfair and uncalled-for detentions of loved ones.  It isn't going to restore the jobs of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been fired this year for no good reason.  But we have to start somewhere, and in my heart I know that if there's any good place to start adding to the positive energy of the world, then kindness just may be it.  And if we spread our modest kindness with love in our hearts, then we're also adding the positive energy of love as well.  And we can definitely hope that our kindness will be passed on, which will make things even better.

It's easy to feel overwhelmed, to feel that what we do means nothing.  But kindness never means nothing, and in today's world, our attempts to keep kindness from going extinct can only help the world, no matter how modest our efforts may seem to us.

Little Ones--A Paragraph a Day

I sometimes get a bit pessimistic about humanity when I read the news and see all the awful things that human beings do to each other just because they believe different things or have different color skin or live in a different area.  It's difficult to constantly see such cruelty and lack of respect for one another, but life is what it is, right?  And we have to deal with it, don't we?  But one thing that keeps me hopeful about human beings is making sure that I continue to have contact with young people, and that's where my teaching comes in.  I deal with lots of high school students who are kind and considerate and who want to make the most of their lives but don't want to step all over other people in order to do so.  I have students who really do want to learn, and who do everything they can in order to do so.  And my wife works with even younger kids--the twins she nannies will be four in a couple of months.  She told me that today, the girl asked her to help her write a Christmas card for her parents.  And without any prompting, this is what she told my wife she wanted to write to her mom:  "Thank you so much for always taking care of us," and she wanted to say the same thing to her dad, but adding:  "and always being there when mommy is away."  The fact that a four-year-old can think that way fills me with not just admiration, but also hope--there have to be more kids just like her in the world, and one day I hope that they're in charge.  And then things will be much, much better than they are now.

What Does Christmas "Spirit" Mean?--A Paragraph a Day

I love the idea of Christmas Spirit, but I'll be the first to admit that I don't know what the term actually means.  It's probably one of those things for which we have the standard kind of answer--"it means something different for everyone"--but it would be nice if we could define it and understand it clearly.  Not because I'm the type of person who needs and wants to have everything catalogued and defined according to a certain set of criteria, but because it seems to be such a positive concept, one that can bring us true joy if we knew how to access it, or harness it, or adopt it.  After all, the Spirit of Christmas would have to include a love of giving, and it would have to include a love for virtually everyone.  It would exclude everything like greed and selfishness, and it wouldn't have anything to do with judgment or bias.  I think that if I want to go out and model the Spirit of Christmas, I would have kind words for everyone I met, and I would be as generous as I possibly could be, given my means.  I wouldn't treat others with harshness, and I wouldn't make them feel that I didn't approve of them for any reason.  If I were to model Christmas Spirit, I would listen carefully when others talked, and I would encourage them as much as I could.  I would be inclusive rather than exclusive, encouraging rather than discouraging, and loving rather than hateful.  I would show gratitude often, and I would take gracefully from those who wished to give to me, while giving wholeheartedly to those who were willing to take from me.  The Christmas Spirit is a spirit that we can adopt for every day of our lives if we choose to do so, and I hope that one day, I'll regularly be treating others as kindly in May or August as I do in December.  The Spirit I share is my choice, after all, and I'd like it to be a caring, loving, compassionate spirit all the time.

Christmas--A Paragraph a Day

Every year I have to ask myself why I like Christmas so much, and I never come up with a satisfactory answer.  It isn't for religious reasons, because the holiday really has gone far past its religious roots, and if my focus were on religion, I'd probably dislike the holiday more than I like it.  It isn't for the gift-giving, because that seems to have gone over the top for most people, becoming more like a competition to give the best gift or a way to buy other people's love and affection.  I think that the bottom line for me is that it's a season when so many people are thinking of others more than they're thinking of themselves.  Our focus shifts from inward (which is very often very positive) to outward, and we're more concerned with the other people in our lives than we are in ourselves.  In my family this was rarely the case--we spent most of our holidays hoping that dad wouldn't go out drinking on the 23rd and not come home until the 26th or 27th.  Our holiday thoughts weren't on what we could do for others, but what we hoped wouldn't happen to us.  Since then, though, I've come to see Christmas more as Scrooge's nephew sees it in a book that I read every Christmas, starting on my birthday on the 20th:  "I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"  I think that Dickens definitely hit the nail on the head there, and I know that I will always love Christmas for just that reason.  Here's hoping that your Christmas, too, is a wonderful one!

Heart or Brain?--A Paragraph a Day

Sometimes I think too much with my brain, and not enough with my heart.  Actually, I take that back--it's not sometimes.  Almost always, I think too much with my brain, and not enough with my heart.  I try to approach things logically, I try to figure things out, I try to come up with solutions.  I'm not as bad as it as I used to be--as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, I grew up with some pretty extreme issues concerning control of situations--but I still do it far more than I'd like, or even than I'd like to admit.  I've grown up trusting my brain to work its way through virtually everything, rather than allowing my heart to let me know that some things are just fine the way they are, and I don't need to spend any effort trying to "fix" them.  My heart accepts others more quickly and more fully than my brain does, and it appreciates some of the blessings of my life more fully than my brain does.  My brain likes to find fault with things, and it likes to find ways to improve them; my heart accepts and appreciates things as they are, and it allows them to be just what they are without change, and it helps me to show that appreciation and love much more than my brain does.  I know that people in my life have been affected by me in many more positive ways when I've been following my heart rather than my brain, and one thing I truly want to keep doing is raising the percentage of time I allow my heart to be the dominant force in my life rather than my brain.  I'm a more caring and compassionate person when I do so.

I Wasn't Enough--A Paragraph a Day

It interests me sometimes to ponder the past, to think about how I was years ago, decades ago.  In my memory, almost everything I remember is just like yesterday, but it's also a million years ago.  I think of how I was at age five, age twenty, age thirty--usually thrown back in time by a particular song that I hear, or a food that I eat, or a piece of news that I'm reminded of.  One of the commonalities of all the me's that I remember in my early life is that I was constantly cursed with the idea that I wasn't enough, that I didn't measure up to anyone's standards or needs.  I lost out on a lot because of this tendency, especially as far as relationships were concerned.  I thought that people didn't want to be around me, that they found me lacking, that they preferred to be with someone else.  And I believe that in many cases, my feeling became a self-fulfilling prophecy because I was constantly trying to be someone I wasn't, to make people like me, to force something positive to happen with someone else because I didn't trust it to happen without my help.  I no longer do this, and my life is much, much easier and much more pleasant now that I don't.  I'm fine just the way I am, and I no longer feel the need for anyone else's validation--I appreciate it when I get it, but my own happiness doesn't hang in the balance when it comes or it doesn't.  I am enough, just the way I am, and I'm completely willing to accept myself just as I am.  If someone else doesn't see it, that's okay--they're missing out on something they'll never know about, but I'm not going to put myself down or blame myself for their lack of acceptance or caring.  I like life much better this way.

People Helping People--A Paragraph a Day

I'm showing the film Thirteen Lives to one of my classes this week.  It's a wonderful movie that shows just how good and how kind people can be to each other, and the kinds of risks that people are willing to take, the kinds of sacrifices that people are willing to make, in order to help out other human beings whom they've never even met before.  When thirteen young people are trapped in a cave by flooding, the lengths to which people are willing to go to save them are truly inspiring, and it's a very nice thing in this world to watch a story about people helping people selflessly, rather than the typical fare that's presented to us in the name of entertainment of people hurting other people, for whatever the reason.  I like to remind myself that the world truly is meant for this--kindness and compassion, rather than hatred, greed, and harm.  It's hard to see through the haze sometimes, but films like this help to clear the air and help us to see what human beings are capable of if we allow compassion to be a guiding force in our lives.

Quiet Afternoons--A Paragraph a Day

It's really quite fascinating to me just how nice quiet afternoons at home have become for me.  There was a time when I wanted to be out doing something, when I wanted to be active, when I felt I was wasting my time if I wasn't actually doing something.  But these days, some of my most pleasant moments come when I choose to stay home in the afternoon and read or play chess or color or draw or write.  I still love being active and doing things, but I've reached a point at which balance is very important, too, and I really like being at home, doing nothing, while outside the world keeps going on and on without me playing an active role in it.  I wouldn't want to do it all the time, of course, as I'm sure the charm would wear thin, but as long as I do balance staying in on a quiet afternoon and just relaxing with the other approaches to life that I tend to take, then I'll be fine.  Such afternoons stir appreciation for the home I have to relax in, for the money I have to maintain the home and my lifestyle, for the opportunity even to just slow down and be for a few hours.  It's a privilege that not everyone in the world is able to enjoy.  Quiet afternoons can give us some of our best moments if we can be sure to actually enjoy and appreciate them without feeling that we should be doing something else.

The Strength of the Gentle

I grew up thinking that strength meant being strong, showing strength in physical and emotional ways.  It meant being unyielding, and it always implied pushing beyond limits and pushing others to push themselves beyond their personal limits.  It was an ideal that everyone was supposed to live up to:  always being strong and never giving in.

Gentleness, on the other hand, was seen as weakness in many cases.  A gentle response to a problem was lame and ineffective.  A gentle approach to a problem made no sense, because we surely can't "overcome" problems with a gentle approach.

But what if most problems don't need to be overcome?  What if, instead, they need to be understood and worked through?  What if gentleness is an approach that works more effectively in the long run, long past the time that the short-term fix that's based on strength or force ceases to be effective any more?  Many people never will find out the effectiveness of gentleness because they'll always be convinced that they have to be strong in order to get things done.

Gentleness means recognizing that the world around us is fragile, especially
other people. It is recognizing our own capacity to do harm and choosing 
to be tender, soft-spoken, soft-hearted, and careful. When we are gentle
we touch the world in ways that protect and preserve it.  Being gentle
doesn't mean being weak; gentleness can be firm, even powerful.
-unattributed, Wisdom Commons

I was fortunate as a teacher to discover that the vast majority of my students responded much, much better to my gentleness than they did to my strength.  They had enough "strong" teachers--they didn't need any more criticism, harshness, inflexibility, or punishment.  The vast majority of them were doing the best they could, and they really appreciated it when I treated them gently rather than harshly.

Sometimes we feel pressure to be "in control" of things, and many of our so-called "teachers" in life--parents, relatives, bosses, and anyone else who has influence over us--try to convince us that being "in control" means that other people will bend to our will and act in ways we want them to.  The kid who's making noise will shut up; the subordinate at work will do what they're told; nobody will argue with you for any reason at all.

But the gentle approach isn't concerned with directly controlling situations.  Rather, the gentle person understands that often, things don't go right because someone doesn't understand something and needs to be taught, or someone is doing something wrong because they're hurting in an important and painful way, or a person doesn't respond well to suggestions or requests because they simply don't understand the importance of doing something in a certain way.  In these cases--and many others--gently helping the person involved is generally much more effective than trying to "force" things to happen our way.

Don't judge the gentle; their gentleness is stronger than your fears and angers.
Don't judge those who have lost their gentleness; you haven't lived their lives.
In all people, hope for the gentleness to return and see gentleness
for the beauty that it is.
-C. JoyBell C.

One of the most important things that we can do in our lives is to adopt gentleness as an approach to the rest of life.  When we're gentle, we allow others to be themselves rather than trying to force them to be something else.  When we're gentle, we become an ally to other people rather than an enemy.  When we're gentle, we show others their worth and value rather than trying to convince them that they're worthless if they don't do things our way.  When we're gentle, we help people to heal rather than opening up new wounds.

Yes, there are times when a strong and unyielding approach is more effective, even necessary.  But these times represent the exception rather than the rule.

A gentle approach to the world shows respect and allows others to keep their dignity.  It shows the world that we're not so insecure that we must dominate and control others.  It allows us to be an ally of life rather than a foe of life.  And for ourselves, it gives us peace of mind and peace of heart when we focus on a gentle understanding rather than stressful conflict.  Gentleness allows us to be in touch with our higher selves, that part of who we are that is able to share love, compassion, understanding, and hope with our fellow human beings.

In the broad picture of life, let me always be a person who chooses a gentle approach whenever I can.

Read more on gentleness here.