Kind Or In-Kind? (part three)
Always be kind. Act in-kind to the kind and kind to the un-kind.
At the same time we must recognize that our kindness should not lend itself to consciously and/or repeatedly exposing ourselves to un-kind. Your kindness to un-kind has limits. If your kindness doesn’t lend itself to a re-examination from the un-kind one, you need to protect yourself.
A lifeguard is taught that if they swim out to save someone and that person resists, the lifeguard must make the difficult decision of protecting their own life and leaving the other to possibly drown. The lifeguard can leave a flotation device and call for assistance, but it’s their own life they need to preserve at that point. If you don’t save and protect yourself, you are not available to help others and fulfill your purpose and mission. This approach applies to all that come into your life.
P.S. This scenario assumes you can’t save the other and you would both drown. If the scenario was that you could save the other and give your life, that’s a different question for another post.
Jump Out Of Bed
Begin today and each day by being thankful and grateful. First and foremost be grateful that you woke up.
For that means that you have been given more of the most precious non-renewable resource of all—Time! You have been given time because you are needed, your life has purpose and meaning, and you matter.
You are given this time to perform a good for one or for many. You are given this time because no one else can perform this specific good except you. It all depends on you.
“One today, is worth two tomorrows.” – Ben Franklin
an oldie but goodie, originally posted 1/21/11
A Quick Thought That Deserves Lots of Thought
“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” – Tom Bodett
The Road Runner
In the “Road Runner”, the Road Runner is always frustrated and being chased by Wylie Coyote. There is always the scene where the road runner is racing ahead and as he gets to the precipice of a cliff, he darts behind a bush without Wylie Coyote seeing. So Wylie Coyote continues the chase and doesn’t see that he runs past the edge.
Now visualize this scene of Wylie Coyote running with nothing but air beneath him. When does Wylie Coyote start to fall? He starts to fall when he looks down. When he looks down is when fear sets in, and fear is paralyzing!!
Never look down. Never look back. If you are always looking back your future will look like your past. Always look ahead towards your goal. If you are not looking ahead now, you will be looking back later.
Part of the Eye Of The Tiger series
“Where Are You?”
In Genesis 1:1-6:8, G-d asks Adam “Where are you?” This seems like an odd question. One would think that G-d knows where Adam is. The Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812) explains that the question
“is G-d’s perpetual call to every man. Where are you in the world? What have you accomplished? You have been allotted a certain number of days, hours, and minutes in which to fulfill your mission in life.”
The Wrong Question Promotes The Wrong Attitude
We are often asked “How is life treating you”? That question creates a mindset of us as victims of circumstance. The question really should be “How are you treating life”?
We have no control over the events that come our way; we can only control how we react to them. We can train ourselves to view everything and everyone that comes our way as an opportunity to learn, grow, and improve. That’s why it’s presented to us.
An athlete’s trainer has the athlete perform drills to master in order to build a base. Building on the base the trainer successively gives new and more challenging drills. We should view the next thing that comes our way as what we now need to master.
“It did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.” – Viktor Frankl speaking of himself and other inmates of Auschwitz from “Man’s Search for Meaning”
“Circumstances are beyond the control of man; but his conduct is in his own power.”— Benjamin Disraeli
“A joyful person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes”. – Hugh Downs
Kind Or In-Kind? (part two)
Our instinct to react in-kind to an un-kind act of another can potentially spread to our instinct (consciously or subconsciously) to treat all un-kindly, not just the perpetrator.
We might go into the “well if everyone is like that, then I might as well…” mode. The un-kind acts are like a communicable disease. If we succumb to those instincts of reacting in-kind, we not only catch the disease, we spread it.
Maimonides teaches us to consider the world as though it were a scale equally balanced between good and evil. That means we have it in our power with one-act of kindness to tip the scales to the good.
The world that we all wish for can begin now and it begins with you!
“How wonderful it is, that nobody need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank
The Spinning Rabbi - Heart & Soul 