This will be a topic that I ruminate on for a while. I need to work it out in my head.
It’s the question of choice. And it is the question of choice in the face of facts. What do I expect of myself?
It is the nature/nurture question. Am I going to accept who I am, what I am, and my circumstances as limiting my options? Or will I make choices and take action, notwithstanding?
I understand the place of realistic limits. Those limits are time and resources available to me.
I understand the limits of fate. Fortune will smile on me, or she will not.
But within those limits, what’s my excuse? I’m too old and have seen to much to blame my genes or my childhood, or to whine about boneheaded politicians who fuck things up for everyone including me.
All of that? It’s weather.
And regardless of the weather, what am I going to do today? Am I on the beam? Am I deliberately choosing the right path, regardless of difficulty?
We all love the Horatio Alger stories. Harry Potter is of that ilk: plucky, determined kid chooses and struggles to rise above adversity.
Where is the struggle for me? Why do I not accept this concept wholeheartedly? There is some gear in me that wants to give up and relax — when it is a question of my own choices. There is another gear in me that wants to give someone else a hall pass in life — when circumstances and fate dealt him or her a bad hand.
The first one is simple. Refuse to be a victim.
The second is subtle. I think there is a back door attack here by my brain. If I give them a hall pass, I get one, too. So refuse to do that. Marcus Aurelius and all that stuff: the killer is the opinion I have of things I cannot control. So refuse to have opinions about those things.
Compassion and helping hand, of course. And I’m a retail assistance kind of guy, not wholesale. “Save the whales” (or insert your favorite “I’m going to save those people over there” mentality) is not for me. I like one-on-one.
Marcus Aurelius talks about dealing with people with justice and a genuine desire to help. That’s the way to go.