Owning up
It's interesting to see what happens when you decide to take a stand on things which you feel strongly about that are, to the rest of the world, idealistic in nature.
Yesterday I published some thoughts which I hoped would go around and would make people stop and think and hopefully consider taking action to their higher ideals. (Note: While I am the author those words came out as the result of personal observations, conversations with a number of people and from seeking out the advice of people for whom I have much respect.) Ideals which I feel strongly about and which I think many others in our specific world do as well.
In the single day since those words went out I have seen many people not involved in the events at hand step up for their own reasons and accept what was said as a call to live towards their own higher ideals. This was a reaction that surprised me at the time (though in hindsight I probably should not have been surprised given the character of so much of the Western populace) and it gives me a great feeling about the future knowing that they are out there.
Unfortunately I have also seen a couple of cases of people choosing to continue to act to lower instincts, reacting with mockery or challenge and I am thus reminded that living to our highest ideals also sets us up in a place from which we can and do fall, not to mention those who simply choose to jump. I am reminded that everyone is important in our world even when we don't necessarily know how or to whom and the thought that others watch our actions is a daunting lesson I think many of us could benefit from learning.
With that in mind (and much further contemplation) I am now going to follow the example of those others who, while not being involved with the events at hand, did choose to speak their own ills and make their own pledges towards living to their higher ideals.
I have a terrible temper. It often will not seem so because it takes something significant to move me in that direction, but when I am finally pushed that far I often find I am fully and completely capable of a significant anger driven response. I also have a number of "big red buttons" which many would consider petty that also drive excessive reaction out of me. I am fortunate to have a number of people in my life who are able to moderate my temper and help me to keep my responses more under control.
Patience they say is a virtue. If so than I am not so virtuous as I could be.
Some of what I have said since all this has begun has made life more difficult for a number of people. My actions have certainly added to their burden and while I do not feel that anything I have said is necessarily wrong I do regret that in having said them I have made work for others who were put in potentially very bad positions by my outbursts. (For what it's worth they have also, each and every one of them, acquited themselves with poise, grace, passion and strength and by their actions have made me very proud of them and feel very humble that they consider me worthy of looking after.) I could have allowed myself the time to more carefully consider my words and in so doing avoided the trouble I have caused them, but if I am to be honest than I must admit that I know that in my own upset I deliberately decided not to be persuaded from my course. In that I am most definitely regretful and hope that I have learned well enough that in the future I will choose a better, more noble course.
And for any who wonder why this is not going out more or less simultaneously on my Facebook as the first message did, it is simply that from where I am now (work) I have no access. It will be shared there this evening once I am home.
Yesterday I published some thoughts which I hoped would go around and would make people stop and think and hopefully consider taking action to their higher ideals. (Note: While I am the author those words came out as the result of personal observations, conversations with a number of people and from seeking out the advice of people for whom I have much respect.) Ideals which I feel strongly about and which I think many others in our specific world do as well.
In the single day since those words went out I have seen many people not involved in the events at hand step up for their own reasons and accept what was said as a call to live towards their own higher ideals. This was a reaction that surprised me at the time (though in hindsight I probably should not have been surprised given the character of so much of the Western populace) and it gives me a great feeling about the future knowing that they are out there.
Unfortunately I have also seen a couple of cases of people choosing to continue to act to lower instincts, reacting with mockery or challenge and I am thus reminded that living to our highest ideals also sets us up in a place from which we can and do fall, not to mention those who simply choose to jump. I am reminded that everyone is important in our world even when we don't necessarily know how or to whom and the thought that others watch our actions is a daunting lesson I think many of us could benefit from learning.
With that in mind (and much further contemplation) I am now going to follow the example of those others who, while not being involved with the events at hand, did choose to speak their own ills and make their own pledges towards living to their higher ideals.
I have a terrible temper. It often will not seem so because it takes something significant to move me in that direction, but when I am finally pushed that far I often find I am fully and completely capable of a significant anger driven response. I also have a number of "big red buttons" which many would consider petty that also drive excessive reaction out of me. I am fortunate to have a number of people in my life who are able to moderate my temper and help me to keep my responses more under control.
Patience they say is a virtue. If so than I am not so virtuous as I could be.
Some of what I have said since all this has begun has made life more difficult for a number of people. My actions have certainly added to their burden and while I do not feel that anything I have said is necessarily wrong I do regret that in having said them I have made work for others who were put in potentially very bad positions by my outbursts. (For what it's worth they have also, each and every one of them, acquited themselves with poise, grace, passion and strength and by their actions have made me very proud of them and feel very humble that they consider me worthy of looking after.) I could have allowed myself the time to more carefully consider my words and in so doing avoided the trouble I have caused them, but if I am to be honest than I must admit that I know that in my own upset I deliberately decided not to be persuaded from my course. In that I am most definitely regretful and hope that I have learned well enough that in the future I will choose a better, more noble course.
And for any who wonder why this is not going out more or less simultaneously on my Facebook as the first message did, it is simply that from where I am now (work) I have no access. It will be shared there this evening once I am home.