If there’s anything I’ve learned from going to hospitals, either as a visitor or now as an inpatient, there will always be people who have it far worse than I do. This is not a sick sort of schadenfreude or ‘sucks to be you,’ but a statement that despite the many curves thrown our direction, life is indeed good and worthy of living rather than simply existing. Moreover, there are so many good and noble things around us that they escape our attention through the din of routine and so-called reality TV.
Take a spin by the water cooler or through the break room at
work. Turn on the radio or television and you’ll be treated with enough of a fresh
helping of toxic vitriol and hatred to curl your hair. Divisive, dishonest, and
ineffectual politics are always the other party’s fault, selfishness reins
supreme over the latest group of domestic squabbles that make it to the local
page, and aghast, we look down our collective noses, placing great self-importance
in maintaining the balance of it all. After all, since the Internet tells all
without bias, we are equipped to make a fair and balanced decision. Justice
hangs in the balance while we munch on leftovers from last night’s sodium-laden
cuisine. Back to the grind, we solved a crisis or two and had a good laugh
doing it. Yeah, been there, done that.
My point is not to cast dispersions on the group of who holds
court with each other over lunch. To vent is human, to forgive naïve, right?
Yeah, something like that. I absolutely appreciate countervailing arguments as
long as there’s give-and-take. The problem today, or so it seems, is that
people aren’t willing to do much more than parrot talking points, so exploring
the impetus behind the opinion rings hollow and it echoes, never reaching a
destination.
So, my solution to all this is rather simple – just live. Let me explain.
I don’t watch TV but once in the proverbial blue moon. I loathe broadcast television because of the
inane repetitive advertising and lack of real substance. I’m one of the binge
watchers where I wait until the end of a season to get the discs on Netflix or
watch the series on demand so I can see episodes in order and at my convenience…and
without ads! The irony? I don’t really care to watch the Super Bowl, but will
watch the commercials. Go figure!
But I watched Good
Morning America this morning after hearing that Valerie Harper, star of Rhoda, a series I used to watch pretty
regularly as a kid, had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer and was
going to give an interview this morning. I wanted to know how someone who had
it all and had her mortality handed to her unceremoniously in a Tupperware dish
would respond. Amazingly she used the exact words I did a few days ago, “Why
not me?” Great minds think alike, I guess! Her attitude was so positive and her
counsel: “just live!” She went on to
say, “Don’t go to the funeral until the day of the funeral.” Currently that
interview is too new, but she did grant one to another show yesterday. You can see her same upbeat, positive words shine through here:
I can do that. I can live…really live. I mean, there’s just so much negativity out there and it’s just too easy to jump in on the carrion of meanness like a pack of jackals. To be fair, my habit to this point had been rather optimistic, but the barrage of cognitive dissonance I see in my country and my world conspires to take me down some days emotionally. So, for me, optimism has become a deliberate and constant choice. Making positive changes is just one of the outcomes. Did I point out that despite the circumstances I’m in here, I haven’t taken my blood pressure medication a single day since arriving? Sure, I could offer lots of quotes and homiletics that support my assertion to show you just how erudite and wise I am, but the fact of the matter is that I, alone, can only make a small difference. Must be that Pay it Forward thing. Whatever works.
Can I ask you to live intentionally in the positive, even if
it’s just enough to make someone smile? After all, someone could easily just
look at me and say glibly ‘sucks to be you,’ and yeah, perhaps it does. After
all, I’ll bet you’re not peeing in a bottle several times a day or feeling like
death warmed over on when those unseen blood counts dip below some intangible
level I can’t see, but seriously, I don’t see it that way. Far more than just
exist, far more than simply being alive, I’m going to live. I daresay you have plenty to really live for. Do it today before “normal” becomes the goal!
Be well, stay strong, much love to you all!
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