Enough Already!

There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. -Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), American writer and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Preying and Pouncing

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think so. I have to believe deep in my soul that we are really not trying to hurt each other. It’s hard to fathom that we would really go out of our way to plot and plan the demise of another human being. Or maybe just laying in the tall grass ready to pounce on the weakest among us.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for survival of the fittest, but why does that have to carry a negative connotation? Why does survival have to come at the sacrifice of somebody else.  Are we animals or do we actually have the ability to reason? Isn’t that what supposedly made us the top of the food chain? Even animals stick together. The lion’s pride, the wolf’s pack, the ant’s colony!

Tripping Tigers

What am I talking about you ask? Just turn on the news. It’s loaded with stories of somebody’s demise or the revelation that we’ve been had by somebody. Need I mention Bernie Madoff and the rest of the pirates that have penetrated the ranks of Wall Street. And of course, how could I avoid the story of Tiger Woods and his fall from grace.

The media couldn’t wait to crush Woods and his family. So much that they nearly put his mother in law in critical condition. This all goes down in the media and we just sit back and watch. But what are we really thinking? Well just listen all around you and you’ll hear the voices of the the self-righteous and the opportunists. You would think that somebody actually asked these people to serve as judge and jury.

Coming Your Way

But slow down for a minute and think. Let’s start with some of the best simple wisdom, that we know that none among us is infallible. It’s quite obvious even to the less educated and narcissistic that sooner or later we fall down. Even though we prepare for the obstacles, they seem to have an uncanny knack for finding us anyway. The human mind is so complex that it works in continuous turmoil. We reason ourselves towards the right thing, only to be overthrown in a moment by our pleasure seeking mechanism that throws a wrench in the whole plan as we crash into the wall. That’s just the way it is. For some more dramatically than others, but inevitable for all of us.

And that’s just the point. We know that to be true, but we still pile on top of the injured. We support the media in their exploitation of our very own weaknesses. Think about that for a moment. The media, having nothing else as exciting as someone’s personal demise or injury can’t wait to suck the rest of us in. But why are we such an easy mark? Why do we come running to stand over the mess and start gawking. Yet even worse, we begin to wax on poetic about how we would never have fallen prey like that poor slob; how nothing has ever gone wrong in our lives; how of course we have never tripped up; never hurt somebody we cared about; never cheated even a little bit.

Could It Happen To Me

Of course this is the part of the story where the self-righteous pop up like prairie dogs and start preaching how they could never even fathom an aberration. Precisely when they fall victim to their own pot hole and down they go with the rest. So wake up and smell the disaster. It’s coming your way. It happens to all of us and it’s unavoidable and that’s why we feel so compelled by tragedy. We know it could easily have been any one of us. We see ourselves in the victim the same way we dread coming upon a car accident just minutes later and think…that could have been me!

So what does this all mean? Enough already! Stop beating everybody up. Stop kicking people when they’re down. This week, my brother received the bad news that a friend of his had decided to take his own life. How does that make you feel? Well my brother was wandering the streets of Boston trying to make sense of it all. I could tell in his words that he was disturbed, because it touches that frail spot in all of us when we get depressed. Could that happen to me?

Big Ears

Well I know how to change this and so do you! Reach out and help somebody. Stop acting like you can’t or you don’t know what to say and do. Do you know how to talk? Do you know what you would want to hear if you were hurting? Maybe it’s your ears that somebody needs? How about your ability to listen? What if it’s as easy as asking, “how are you feeling,” and then really listening to the answer? You see when we’re in pain the worst place to be is alone.

A mind in turmoil left by itself can do silly things. It can rationalize crazy behavior as it paints us into an imaginary corner where we lose hope. Don’t let that happen to somebody on your watch! There’s no argument that the greatest satisfaction in life comes from helping somebody. Try it!  If you really want to feel it’s affects at the highest level, then do it anonymously and see how you feel. Oh and by the way the person in receipt of the random, blind act of kindness might just begin to believe in the goodness inherent in humanity.

Help Somebody Now

Our rally cry here is that Nobody is Coming for us. So stop hoping that somebody else is going to step up and help. It’s on you! Get up out of your stupor or even your self-righteous ivory tower. What if I told you that over the course of your life, you have the power to save a life? Well you ALL do! You don’t know exactly who, when or where, but it’s coming and it just might happen more than once, but you have to get in the fight. Stop letting the media play you like a fiddle and get you to jump on the weak…reject it and emerge from the crowd and make it better! NOW!