Unwavering

I have made the joke about myself being like one of those trick candles, you know, the kind that you blow out, but immediately pop back up. Like a Weeble? Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down? A toy that always bounced up. I am not so much consistently positive as resiliently positive. I know what I value and orient myself toward my values each and every day. I know that in order for me to remain grounded that I can not leave it to chance. I have to be inspired in order to not be despondent. 

However, that is the secret. This universe is a benevolence, and each of us is here to prove that fact. Not by what happens to us, but in the way we frame what has happened. Did it happen to me or for me? Even in the midst of tragedy what was the blessing? We make mistakes and learn. Challenge can introduce us to our own nobility.

So there is plenty of evidence that humanity is not who you want moving into the neighborhood. We have fresh examples among a sordid history of our extremely inhumane and horrifically narcissistic mindsets and behaviors. It is us. We are responsible for all of this. For slavery, for the way native people have been wiped out how women have been treated, all of it. We are all victims, and all guilty. Humanity has an unpleasant tendency to really want to sit in righteous judgement, but no history of being fair in judgement. There is nothing more dangerous or more irrational than a human who is convinced that right is on their side. 

So what do we do with this? To me it is realizing there is good going on here, and to look for it. Not hide from what must be dealt with, but to not forget our bedrock values. We breathe with the commitment of the samurai and vow to stay in the present. 

In breathing and training ourselves on a daily basis we can become more calm. We can improve even long standing patterns. We can accept that everyone makes mistakes including us and those around us. We can choose to find something in this time that makes us want to champion the best of what it means to be human rather than the worst. We can become a flame that does not waver, and be part of humanity coming together.