Archive for the ‘Values’ Category

>    I watched a video clip of Prime News with Erica Hill on CNN online yesterday. The piece was about a reality TV show called “Intervention” that aired a story tracking an alcoholic woman as she, among other things, takes several long, last swigs of vodka from a bottle then gets into her car, drunk, and drives off. Ms. Hill interviewed both the director of the show and a professor of ethics from Syracuse University. The issue under discussion was whether or not the shows director had an obligation to “step in” and prevent the obviously intoxicated woman from driving, thereby putting herself and others at risk.
    You think?
    Well, their respective positions were as follows. The director said that it was a reality show and, therefore, not their duty or obligation to intervene with behavior that someone would otherwise have taken part in anyway without the presence of the cameras and witnesses. The professor said that while there was no legal obligation to do so, there may have been an ethical/moral obligation for the director to intervene.
    You think?
    All agreed upon conclusion (including Ms. Hill) that the reality show has a good and valuable purpose which is to show the less-than-glamorous side of addictive behavior and the benefits of intervention. So, you could say CNN ended the story on a positive, upbeat note, highlighting the overall benefit of “Intervention.” After all, it’s a show that conveys a positive message.
    You think?
    I mean is anyone thinking?
    While I don’t question the ability to use TV to educate and elevate our thinking minds, what exactly were these people thinking? Are we so far afield from true reality that justifying and rationalizing the promotion of destructive behavior and the profiteering that can be had from it is a good use of technology and the media?
    I used to practice law, and I know doctors who practice psychiatry, and both lawyers and doctors have a legal and ethical duty to report knowledge of a pending crime or action where an individual’s behavior will place them or others in harms way.
    Now, I’m not holding a reality TV director to the same standard as a lawyer or a doctor. At least not the same legal standard. But ethically and morally, don’t we all, as fellow members of humankind, have an obligation to assist one another in mitigating harm when we see it?  Is it enough to say that “it was going to happen anyway so why should I get involved?”  Doesn’t that
abdicate personal responsibility in every situation?  If I see someone being
beaten, should I not attempt to intervene in some way to assist the
victim…whether it’s a call to the police or more immediate intervention? Can
I walk away with peace of mind saying “If I hadn’t been there they would
have been beaten anyway.”
          You think?
   I think not.
          It is not enough to invent the technology, it’s incumbent
upon us to use it wisely.

    There is evidence all over our planet that intelligent life
existed thousands of years ago in highly developed civilizations about which we
have little or no understanding. What they were able to accomplish, to this day,
defies our comprehension. Yet they are gone. Disappeared without apparent
cause.
    There’s a theory among spiritualists and others that at one time, the
“lost continent of Atlantis” was as technologically advanced
as we are today. But, through misuse of the power they had harnessed they
destroyed themselves. The belief is that we have reached that point again and
are getting, what is essentially, another chance to do it right.
    I think that doing it right involves using what we have
harnessed for the highest good of all concerned. I also think that standing by
and watching someone put their life and the lives of other in mortal danger
without making any effort to intervene before the fact is not the
highest good for all concerned.
    We are capable of so much more.
    You think?
   

>    A 10-year-old Chinese girl’s feet and hands were bound and she was put into a lake in China for three hours and forced to swim “like a dolphin” to stay afloat. Oh, I’m sorry, she wasn’t forced. Her father, a Chinese swimming coach, said she insisted he do that to help her “train for her goal of swimming the English Channel.” He didn’t risk her life at all, the father continued, because “he swam behind her” the entire time.
Right. Aren’t all 10-year-olds driven by a compulsion for competition by risking their safety and/or their life to break a world’s record?
    It was only 4 years ago that our daughter was 10. I remember it vividly and death defying acts (other then an occasional ride on the “Wolf” at Great Adventure) were not a high priority for she and her friends. So what’s up?
    While the news story from China appalled many worldwide, it struck a way too familiar note to me. We live in an affluent, suburban, New Jersey community and these kids are driven to not only excel in academics, but also to take every possible extracurricular activity they can fit into their day so that they can “compete” for that treasured admission’s spot at the future University of their choice. They are driven to each of these activities by their parents who, I believe, are literally the driving force behind all this drive to succeed.
    Left to their own devices, kids don’t think about college at ages 8, 9, or 10. And when they do, it’s because they’re hearing it at home. Sure, there’s the occasional Mozart or Michaelangelo or Tara Lapinski…who are born with an internal passion to pursue a particular talent or skill. But they’re the exception not the norm. The children of today (and it’s not confined to the U.S. but endemic in all technologically advanced countries) are being stressed to the breaking point to compete, achieve and excel. Their sense of worth is not being derived from Who They Are but rather from What They Do and How Successfully They Can Drown Out The Competition.
    Like the swimming coach father in China who does not see the connection between his own passion and how he has driven his daughter to pursue it, I have personal experience with this one. 
    Parents who think their unfulfilled dreams and internal fears don’t influence their children…listen up.
    Both my parents were children during the Depression when fear of economic survival was the order of the day. Later in life, and shortly after my birth, my father came home from work one day and told my mother that he had quit his well-paying job because he was working 7 days a week, day and night, and he didn’t want to spend his life doing that. She responded with anxiety asking him, “How are we going to survive? We have two little children (I had an older sister). How could you do this?”   
    My father rallied and went on in life to become a successful, self-made millionaire, having never gone beyond high school for financial reasons. All I ever heard him say was that if he could have he would have been a lawyer. It was he life-long regret. At age 9, I wrote an essay in school that started out “When I grow up of course I want to be a wife and mother, but first I want to be a lawyer.” Age 9!
    So here’s the shocker. I grew up to become a lawyer and have an irrational fear of lack even though I’m an artist at heart and always had more than I needed  to survive. Yes, I had totally internalized both his regret and her fear.
    Now, let’s take parents who are less subtle than mine. Let’s take the one’s who are actively pushing their children to compete and succeed and grow up way too fast…or the the ones who are throwing them in lakes with hands and feet tied to sharpen their survival skills. What effect are they having on their children. And to what end?
    There’s and old saying, “Boys will be boys.”  How about “Kids will be kids.” If you’ve got the occasional Mozart, by all means allow that genius to pursue his or her passion. But if you’ve got your pretty standard issue kid, let her grow up at the rate Nature intended, get out of her way, and let her bloom and flower in her own time, not yours.
    And if you’ve always wanted to swim the English Channel or go to Harvard…you go for it.

>    Our house is sick. Yes, a house can get sick the same way a person can…by being out of balance and holding on to old energy. Sound a bit “out there?” Not really. Allow me to explain.
    We bought our house 6 years ago from two elderly people who had raised their family in it and were going to retire to Florida. We gave them their asking price without any counteroffer. They seemed lovely and honest people. On the disclosure form, they stated that the house never had any water leakage. The morning after settlement, we awakened up to a thunderstorm and an inch of water in the sun room. We contacted the sellers but they refused to address their obvious lie, so we sued them and settled for the cost of building a new room.
    We then hired a contractor to do some major renovations elsewhere in the house and, it turned out, he was a fraud who did half the total job at half the competency level and refused to make good on anything. So we sued him and got a judgment against him for the actual damages plus fraud.
    A few months ago we had flooding in our basement and the damage required gutting the room and re-finishing it. We had an insurance claim for part of the renovation.
    Then, as we were about to tear down and rebuild the leaking sun room, lightening hit it and bent the metal frame and cracked the glass. It’s not repairable so it’s being torn down and rebuilt. The replacement cost is totally covered by our homeowners insurance.
    Finally, (I hope) we refinished the hardwood floors in the house last week and the contractor used a toxic polyurethane to seal the stain and I became ill with labored breathing. We had to move out of the house for 4 days into a hotel and get another contractor to come in an re-sand all the toxic material off and re-do the floors. The first contractor is returning our deposit and paying for our hotel and food expenses.
    See, I told you. Our house is sick.
    Now there are two ways to look at all of this.
    Door number 1 is that we are under some sort of curse, bought what is essentially a “money pit” and are the innocent victims of insurmountable bad luck.
    I prefer door number 2. All matter is composed of energy. Energy can be positive or negative, in or out of balance. When there is too much negativity, the energetic balance must be re-established for optimum performance.
    The people who lived in this house before us were not honest people. At the very least, we know they set out to intentionally lie to us, so I think it’s safe to assume that after 28 years of living in this house, it took on an excess build-up of negative energy. Behind door number 2, that negative energy is being released through the experiences our family has been having since we bought it.
    I’ve “owned” several properties in my life thus far. Philosophically, I have always taken the position that I’m just a steward of the land for the time I live on it…meant to turn it over to the next person, improved and more enriched than when I received it. So I see this series of events, this purging of negativity, as the improvement and enrichment that is my chosen path.
    While it’s all been challenging, to say the least, the Sellers eventually paid what they should have reduced the selling price by, the contractor who did the renovations is about to have a Sheriff’s sale of his property to meet the judgment amount, the insurance company will pay for the new sun room, and the flooring contractor will refund our deposit and pay for the hotel and food expenses. So I think the outcomes speak to my underlying belief. I will leave the property improved and more enriched that when I received it, and while that can be a daunting task, you always get the help you need to do the job your meant to do.
    Oh, and one other point.
    While the house has been clearing itself of old energies, so have the inhabitants. My husband, daughter and I also have a lot of negative energy stored up (as most of us do) and over these 6 years we’ve been clearing that as well.
    I guess that’s what they mean when they say that when you’re house shopping, you always know the one your “meant to buy” the minute you find it.
    This has been the prefect house.
   
   

>    Have you noticed the political dialog beginning to “ramp up” with each day we come closer to the 2008 Presidential election? Panic is already beginning to set in as both parties, Republicans and Democrats alike, realize their message is simply not working. As more and more of them awaken to the reality that they have lost the public trust and don’t know how to regain it, they are becoming more and more desperate and, therefore, more and more hateful of speech towards one another.
    What neither of them realize is that their “opposition” is not the other Party, but their own refusal to let go of old systems of belief, behavior and thought that serve neither themselves nor the people they were elected to serve.
    As I look at the Presidential field in both parties, I have but one overriding thought. I don’t know if Barack Obama is “The Man” but I can tell you for certain he is carrying “The Message.”
    The Constitution upon which our government was formed does not begin with “Me vs. You the People…” It begins with “We The People…” for a reason. Enlightened men (and I am certain, women), having left behind nations that were constituted by class and social division, knew the necessity of Oneness. They understood, and passed down to us, the fundamental principle of co-existence that we have ignored and attempted to defy.
    That principle simply stated is this: We Are All One.
    The Democrats would have us believe that the enemy is here at home, in the form of corporations and wealthy individuals who take advantage of the majority for the benefit of the minority. The Republicans would have us believe that the enemy is on other shores, and of other cultures, with the sole purpose of destroying us.
    Both are wrong.
    There is no enemy, domestic or foreign, other than Humankind’s willful refusal to accept its inherent interconnectedness and interdependency. We are branches of the same tree. One branch, diseased and left untreated, will eventually eat away the health of the whole. It’s our continued, self-imposed, delusion that somehow we can hate each other and kill each other and think of ourselves as disconnected from each other that is eating away at our future.
    There are those who say we need a President who understands the economic realities and can manage our fiscal life. There are those who say we need a President who understands the threat of global terrorism and can manage our military and foreign policy to meet that threat. There are those who say we need a President who is sympathetic to the healthcare “crisis” and the environmental “crisis” and will tackle these issues head on, while taking on the lobbying industry which exists solely to prevent progress in these matters.
    I say we need a President who understands that we have had, over time and repeatedly, Presidents who understood some or all of these issues and yet we have none-the-less arrived Here and Now in the condition we find ourselves.
    We need a President who understands and has the courage to state and implement policies that support our Oneness. We are more than “One nation under God.” We are One Humankind under God. We are each and all created equally, regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, political affiliation or spiritual belief system.
    It’s too late for politics as usual with Hilary Clinton or the fear-based message of Rudy Guliani. John Edwards is perpetuating separation and division with his “Two Americas.” And while I think Mitt Romney and others probably “get” the economy, we are so much bigger than that.
    The time for small thinking and division is passed.
    Barack Obama, by his words, is showing that he understands the immediate need to speak to our commonalities and connectedness rather than our differences. I think he understands that same commonality and connectedness to other nations and cultures, as well. Whether or not he can walk the talk will only be known in deed.
    Never the Pollyanna, I do not think this new way of seeing the world will be an easy path to walk. It is fraught with land mines, figurative and literal alike. What I do know, and what you can hear the Republicans and Democrats desperately scrambling to resurrect, is the unmistakable sound of an era, dying. There is no time to tend to the corpse.
    Let’s put our energies into co-creating a reality where we honor our Oneness and our diversity.
    Look out any window. This principle is at work everywhere else in Nature. And Nature has been around a lot longer than Humankind.  It’s Humankind that has yet to learn how to be kind to humans.
    I remain an optimist. For every caterpillar that dies a butterfly is born. This is the natural, evolutionary process of things. Humankind has entered into its “lifetime of the butterfly.”
     As we spread our wings, let us spread the word.
   
   

>    There’s enough national news this morning around personal responsibility to write about…Britney Spears and her children, or the woman who “introduced” the rapist to the child he later videotaped raping. Lack of personal responsibility is everywhere. And so, for the past week, I’ve had my own lessons in it and think they’re worth sharing.
    We had the hardwood floors re-finished in our home this past week. After obtaining 3 estimates, we chose the one who’s price was “in the middle” of the three, not just for price but because the young man seemed reputable and straightforward. He began the job a week ago yesterday. The first day was sanding off the old finish. The second day began the staining process.
    That’s when I began to feel sick.
    On the third day, the first of three coats of polyurethane sealant was applied.    
    That’s when I began to feel sicker.
    It was very hot on the third day so by early evening my husband wanted to close up the windows and put the air conditioning on. I didn’t want to because I wanted the ventilation to stay open to dispersing the awful smell but the contractor said that would be fine.  My breathing soon became labored, my throat burned and my chest hurt. I was also very tired. I told my husband how I was feeling and said it was the product. He said I was being an “alarmist” but agreed, reluctantly, to open the windows. By the next day I was much worse.
    I told the contractor he could not apply any more of the sealant and I wanted the toll free number for the manufacturer whom I then called and was told we should have been warned to vacate the premises for the first 3-5 days following application. When I told the contractor, he called the manufacturer and had that confirmed.
    My family and I moved to a hotel immediately and have lived there for the past 4 nights.
    On Saturday I called the contractor who had given us the highest estimate. He uses a dust-free system and eco-compliant products. Although booked through November, he graciously agreed to have his cousin Nick (a school teacher who works for him in the summers) come to our home the next day (Sunday) and strip the floors, re-stain and re-seal them. Nick worked from 8AM until near midnight and the job was completed in one day.
    We moved back into our house yesterday. My lungs still hurt.
    The first contractor is returning our deposit and paying for our hotel and food expenses. I guess so. He’s very angry at both his distributor and the manufacturer “for not educating” him on the product’s hazards.
    Lot’s of lessons here.
     1. The manufacturer should have labeled the product with adequate warnings. The container had no such warning.
     2. The distributor should know the hazards of what he/she is distributing.
     3. The contractor should have educated himself, and advised his customers accordingly, concerning the hazards of the products he elected to use.
     4. My intuition is the best advice I can get. If I feel something is harmful to me or my family, I should act on that feeling and not acquiesce to another’s perspective (even if the “other” is my husband).
     5. My mother is fond of saying “cheap is dear.” While not always true, it’s important to be educated, as a consumer, as to the basis for significant discrepancies in price.
    On my last call with the original contractor, he said he was thinking about suing the distributor and the manufacturer for “failing to educate” him in the dangers. Well, maybe he has a case and maybe not. I’m a former lawyer and if anyone would likely be thinking about suing anybody it would be me.
    But here’s the thing.
    It’s easy to sue because that mitigates personal responsibility. And that makes us feel better about ourselves. But in the end, if there were no lawyers, (and many live for that day) there would be no choice but to learn form our mistakes and become the wiser for them.
    I could sue. Especially if my health continues to be a problem. But those of you who read my blog regularly know that I’m all about finding the highest message for all concerned. And there is one here, as well.
    It’s in all of our best interest to take our time (a challenge in this hurried world) and be thorough in our choices, trusting in our perceptions, and bold enough to follow them through when the message is clear.
    The second contractor, who used products that were not harmful, that comply with the strictest environmental standards, who helped us out of a difficult and dangerous situation on a days notice, and who did an outstanding job by working on a Sunday from almost sunrise to midnight is an example of the right way to approach personal responsibility, integrity and commitment to excellence.
    Instead of a lawsuit, why not a commercial? It’s so much more positive.
    If you need hardwood floors installed, or refinished, and want it done right, contact Joe Stone’s Hardwood Floors at 856.478.0022
    I love his business logo.
    “A Step In the Right Direction.“
    Now doesn’t that say it all.

>    We’ve just been gifted a stunning
contrast in the use, or misuse, of higher education and the public trust.
Carnegie Mellon University, founded in 1900, invited 43-year-old
Professor Randy Pausch to speak as part of the University’s “Last
Lecture Series.” These are lectures by guest professors who, hypothetically, have only one lecture left to give. At about the same time, Columbia University founded in 1893 invited
51-year-old Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak and
participate in a Q&A session.
    Two universities founded during
the same era having two guest speakers of the same generation provided
us with a rare glimpse into two alternate realities.
    Professor
Pausch, husband and father of three young children, is dying of
pancreatic cancer with no more than, at best, a few months to live. For him the Carnegie’s “Last Lecture” premise is not a hypothetical. Yet the message he conveyed in his speech was in support of the sanctity and uniqueness of every human life. His
delivery was filled with joy and laughter. This man has “been more alive” in his 43 years and produced more creative accomplishments than most of
us will do regardless of how long we live. He faces death as he embraces
life…with enthusiasm, joy and a sense of wonder. He leaves his
children (and those of us fortunate enough to have heard him or read
the transcript) with a joy for life, a sense of wonder, and an
understanding for the importance of giving oneself and others enough
support, encouragement and time to be the best they are capable of
becoming.
    President Ahmadinejad, also a husband and father of
three young children, appears to be healthy of body but is diseased of
mind and Soul. He is a proponent of genocide, suppression of individual
rights, the death penalty for “moral” violations that offend Islam, and
the imposition and oversight by government of individual religious
beliefs. His message is one of separation, judgment, oppression, and the
use of deadly force to accomplish one’s goals.
    Carnegie Mellon
has used it’s venue to uplift the human spirit, affirm the highest
good, ignite the hearts and inspire the minds of those who will take us
into the future.
    Columbia has used it’s venue to feed the egos
of President Ahmadinejad and it’s own President Bollinger. More
troubling is that it’s leadership chose to give energy, and
thereby support, to the destructive rantings of a troubled Soul by
providing him with a platform and making him it’s focal point.
Columbia’s choice gave fuel only to the continuation of such behavior
on the part of Ahmadinejad and others like him.  Apparently, inspiration of the students was not even on
the program yesterday. Surely, it must have never even crossed  President Bollinger’s
mind.
    So what can we learn from these two men?
    A dear
friend of mine, who passed away a few years ago, used to say “We’re all
crippled in some way. It’s just that on some of us it shows, and on
others it doesn’t.” She meant it in the most loving way…to say how
each of us must struggle with limitation and by so doing, overcome it.
   
Professor Pausch is struggling with death. It’s visible and immediate
and he’s overcoming it by walking directly into the unknown with an
enlightened spirit and leaving for his children, and ours, a message of
encouragement and hope.
    President Ahmadinejad is struggling with
death as well. A confused and twisted psyche can’t be isolated, or as
readily “seen”, as the tumors on Professor Pausch’s pancreas but the
disease and disintegration are there, just the same. And be assured
it’s deadly. More so, really. Because Ahmadinejad, who believes that
dying for what he believes in is just, will not be satisfied to do that himself. He wants to impose death on as many others as he sees fit.
   
I think the lesson is that we create this world we pass through by where
we place our thoughts, our energies, and our time.
    Professor Pausch, by
example, has given us a priceless road map for how to traverse life,
and accept death, in a way that mirrors for us all humankind’s highest
potential.     
    On the other hand, Ahmadinejad, by example, represents a dead-end
route identified by a clearly marked “Detour” sign, illustrating where not to go and, hopefully, re-directing us on a path well lit and headed for higher ground.
    We have a soon-to-be university age daughter.
    In our quest to forever expand her understanding of the world as
well as her sense of compassion and justice, guess where she will not be going.
   

>    On a day when headlines read as usual “Oprah Asks Justin About Britany” and “Al Qaeda Wants Jihad Against Musharraf” what a welcome relief to read “Yousiff’s Surgery Went Well, Doctor Said” referring, of course, to the delicate operation (the first of many to be performed) on the 5-year-old boy from Iraq who was dragged from his home by masked men and brutally doused with gasoline then set on fire. 
    What a testimony to the kindness of strangers and the possibilities that exist when we use our will and our technology for the highest good of all concerned.  Many people, worldwide, were so moved by the tragedy that they contributed money, transportation and medical skills in order to provide this child with surgery and the possibility of a normal life.
    Yousiff’s story is the kind of news that elevates our thoughts and opens our hearts. It’s stories such as his that provide the opportunity for we, as members of humankind to be the best we can be. And while his story is one of millions, it sets the example of what we are capable of when we use our power and our talent for good.
    So let’s talk about the millions that don’t make the headlines. Those who remain faceless and nameless but who, nonetheless, daily suffer the anguish, pain and tragedies inflicted upon the defenseless and the disempowered. Whether it’s Darfur, Somalia, Columbia, or anywhere else in the world (including the United States), we are daily offered opportunities to step up, reach out and make a difference. And while I by no means belittle contributing money or time (for at that stage its about all one can do), I’d like to suggest more proactive and preventative measures.
    If we can focus our attention on how interconnected we all are, how each of our actions impacts others both near and far, and how responsible we each are for the thoughts we have and the actions we take in furtherance of those thoughts, I believe it’s possible to change the world we now live in to such a degree that we actually cease co-creating the pain and suffering that surround us.
    As far back as I can remember, I always liked to say, “Thoughts are things.” I just instinctively knew that to be true. Now, as humankind expands what we know about consciousness, we are beginning to prove that we actually effect reality with our thoughts. Perhaps soon we will prove that we not only effect it, we co-create it.
    So, if in fact, our thoughts create the world in which we live, then its vital that we see ourselves, all of humankind, as One Unified Being with many parts, or aspects, of Itself. It’s vital that we understand that when we hurt one part or aspect of that One Unified Being, the pain is felt throughout and reactions occur accordingly. We must begin to think of how we can elevate the human condition, not perpetuate it’s suffering and tragedies by focusing our attention and our deeds on the highest good for all concerned.
    I know all of the people who contributed money and time to make Yousiff’s journey and surgery possible are invaluable. But so are each one of us who focus our thoughts on his healing…and on the healing of pain and suffering everywhere.
    Remember, “Thoughts are things.” Build the foundation for the world you want, brick by brick…thought by thought…deed by deed…and so it will be.
    Blessings and healing to you, Yousiff.

Technorati Profile>    O.J. Simpson is back in the news. I think we owe him a debt of gratitude for giving us the opportunity to get right what we failed to get right the last time he preoccupied the nation.
    Let me start with an historical occurrence. Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph was a Judean sage at the time of the 1st century. It is said that he and 24,000 of his students all perished in one day from a plague. But in  Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) it is said that they perished because of how they spoke to one another. How can this be? Can it be that simply being disrespectful to another is cause for death?
    In physics, it has been proved that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I think this may help us understand how the Kabbalistic perspective may have merit.
    Life is designed to be an endless series of choices…from the most mundane to the most significant. We make the choices we make based upon where our consciousness is at any given moment. Different choices create or manifest different outcomes. If I have the chance to forgive someone or to seek revenge upon them I will experience, quite literally, the consequences of whichever choice I make. The higher and more developed your consciousness, the more challenging and nuanced the choice, the more immediate and proportionate the reaction.
    Now it is said that Rabbi Akiba was one of the most spiritually enlightened beings during a time when a multitude of spiritual beings lived. The students that were drawn to him were likewise enlightened. At their level of consciousness, simply being unkind or insensitive in speech to another was cause for death. While such an outcome may be hard to comprehend, it’s also worth noting that at that time, murder and publicly embarrassing another through speech were the only two behaviors punishable by death. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
    Let’s return to O.J.  He’s just a human being making life choices for which he will ultimately experience the appropriate consequences. It’s a distraction and an abdication of our own personal responsibilities to give any time to what is going on in his life. Our choice is to follow all the media hoopla or not. It’s that simple.
    When we choose to read story after story, watch newscast after newscast, listen to talk show after talk show on what’s happening now with O.J., we are not only guaranteed to get more of the same from the media, we are guaranteeing our own consequence as a result of our own choice. I believe that consequence to be trading off personal and spiritual growth for the diversion of judging another and feeding our ego the illusion that somehow we are better than he is.
    We are not better than O.J. Simpson. We simply have different choices to make than he has. If we choose poorly at the levels we are at, our progress will be not better than his. It’s all a matter of degree.
    Jesus, who lived at the time of Rabbi Akiba, said you can set the banquet table but you cannot make a person eat from it. It is likewise true that the media can daily feed us up a banquet of meaningless stories that have no real impact on our lives and we can eat, or not eat, from that table. The choice is ours.
    This morning, CNN’s homepage (and many others) has O.J.’s photo in the lead box as the lead story. I have a blog to write, a 14-year-old to raise, a marriage to maintain, construction workers at my home, a lot of errands, and a book to finish writing.
    CNN and O.J. don’t even factor in. But I thank them both for giving me this opportunity to choose.
   
   

>    One of the most often quoted lines from the book of Kohelet in the Hebrew Bible (commonly known as the Book of Ecclesiastes) is the saying “…there is nothing new under the sun.”  It would be good to reflect on this statement as world events speed up and all sorts of worries surface about global war, economic collapse and natural disasters.
    While every generation has a tendency to think it’s problems are unique (and by far the most challenging) the truth remains that there are only so many difficulties to go around and they do just that. They “recycle” and emerge as variations on a theme generation after generation.
    War has existed as long as humankind. So has selfishness, greed, and ego…the precursors of war. Economic issues (supply and demand) are equally as old as humankind and are, likewise, often times the basis for aggression. As for natural disasters, well, let’s go back to the Flood before we even get to global warming, earthquakes and tsunami warnings.
    So, what can we glean from all this repetition?
    I think it’s safe to conclude that what really changes is not the basic recipe but rather the rate of speed and magnitude of effect that are experienced. We’ve always been able to kill one another. It’s only in the past century that our expanded consciousness allowed us to co-create a way to do it that took out whole populations in a split second (or split atom, if you’ll allow me the pun). We’ve also always been able to feed our neighbors with our excess production of food, but only the past century saw us co-creating ways to do that for populations on the other side of the world from where we actually produce the surplus.
    I’ve long been a proponent of the theory (perhaps mine alone) that technology outpaced spiritual evolution thus creating the “mess” in which we now find ourselves. But, recently I’ve been rethinking that theory and have a new one.
    It turns out nothing is different at all, just faster with greater overall impact. The key to prosperity, and ultimately survival, rests not on stopping the rate of speed at which we now function, but in learning to adapt to it. How we do that is Part II of my new theory.
    Each of us must stop listening to and following the people and the ways in which things have always been done and, instead, go within our own hearts to determine what is truth for us as individuals and then follow that truth. Admittedly, this will be different for each of us but I believe this is the way it was intended. People are like snowflakes, unique by design. The secret to overall sustainability of humankind is for each of us to not only find and live our own truth but allow others to find and live theirs as well.
    In the rapidly accelerating world in which we find ourselves, it must be our own inner voice that directs us where to place our thoughts and how to prioritize our deeds so that we may eliminate the excess baggage carried forward from our collective past.
    There is nothing new under the sun.
    Except how we see it.
    And how we choose to deal with it.
   
   

>    Last week, on my way to visit my 91 year-old mother in Florida, I purchased a special edition of U.S. News magazine at the airport that is dedicated to advice for high school students on applying to college. I certainly support being prepared in advance for application to institutions of higher learning. However, I think that somewhere along the way we scrambled our priorities and, perhaps, have actually lost our way.
    I am the mother of a 14 year-old daughter who starts high school this morning…so I’m in the trenches on this one. We had to juggle her school schedule with after school lessons in piano and voice as well as math tutoring. Jazz dance lessons are out this semester because of a time conflict. The theater program, of which she is a student, will require that both she and her parents sign a contract stating that if she is in the school play, all other commitments are secondary to rehearsals (piano, voice, tutoring, doctor and dentist appointments included, just to name a few) and that missing one rehearsal automatically removes her from the play. As the performance approaches, rehearsals can last until 11 P.M. on school nights. Team sports have a similar contract so its one or the other, not both, for obvious reasons.
    Our daughter’s schedule is not nearly as “booked” as most of her friends. On the academic front, some of them took a prep course and practice SAT’s (college entrance exams) in 7th grade! Early application and early admissions are now the norm…so their really not “early” anymore, are they?
    As I said, I’m all for advance planning when it comes to college. I went to college and law school and am an advocate for higher education. But when did we stop allowing kids to be kids? When did age appropriate learning and fun become subsumed to the race for who is the smartest…with the most activities on their application…and who gets there first?
    Our next door neighbor has three children under the age of 12. I notice she is tired and stressed a lot. Yesterday we were talking about school starting and she was near an emotional break point telling me about all the required things she had to do for each child. Even her youngest about to enter kindergarten was required to have (among a list of other things) ten glue sticks. Really, 10? Almost as ridiculous as our daughter being required to purchase a $140 calculator in 8th grade. (As an aside, while my neighbor and I were having this conversation, her 9 year-old daughter was yelling that she hadn’t yet gotten the cell phone she’s due).
    The technology has accelerated our lives in so many ways we’ve lost count of them and simply try to keep up…or catch up. The pace and the pressure is hard enough for the adults. As for the children, I suspect the damage is accruing over time…like too many sunburns at the beach when you’re 15 that later turn out to be skin cancer…we are stressing out the children, perhaps beyond repair, and the children are the future.
    I hope our daughter continues to develop her academic mind and creative interests. I know we’ll support her in whatever ways are needed to continue to help her grow to becoming a contributing member of society. But I have to tell you that in the end, I won’t care if it’s Harvard, The Restaurant School, an art Institute or any state college. In the end, I’ll care if she is joyful, compassionate, respectful of all living things and able to appreciate the miracles of life that occur all around her each and every day.
    As of this writing, there is no course selection or after school activity being offered in “Life Appreciation and Right Thinking.” Until there is, my husband and I are teaching that one.