(The red text are links)
With two full months of 2015 completed, it has been a year of the unexpected. At our house, 2015 has been repeatedly called “The Year of Woe.”
Among our circle of friends and acquaintances have been unexpected deaths, an extraordinary high amount of newly diagnosed sickness and worsening conditions, and even fatal accidents involving pets.
Way down on the list of things to be woeful about is a cancelled trip to India that had been planned for almost four years.
It would be easy to get depressed (anger takes too much energy, so I would choose depression), but that’s no answer.
“Looking on the bright side,” even whistling it, doesn't cut it.
So here’s what I choose: take a walk. Take a long walk. Since March 1, 2013, when I first started keeping track, I’ve walked 462 times, covering 1,170 miles and burned 176,458 calories. I don’t want to know how many calories I’ve taken in.
Walking helps. It exercises me and the dog (Luca). It gets me the fresh air I need. It gives me time to plan and sometimes helps me compose these writings.
Yesterday I wasn't listening to anything in the ear buds except the wind, my footsteps, and the occasional sound of a runner surprised to see Luca. (I’ll write about him some other time). As shown on the map, I went to Pine Gully Park, on Galveston Bay. There, with an atypical wind chill, I recalled a lunch there a few years ago with an international couple. It was windy that day, too, when they fired up a charcoal grill. We had an outdoor conversation and memorably grilled steak on a day more suited for kite flying.
Yesterday I called that male half of that couple, just to tell him I had returned to the site of our lunch and to see how he and his wife (and now child) are doing. He told me many good things about their life in America and about one troubling conversation in which he was targeted. A co-worker stunned a room full of colleagues by expressing his desire that all of my friend’s countrymen be killed. Then the man left the room.
Whoa! What happened? My friend was “the bigger man” (the person who is more mature than the opposite person, the person who makes more mature decisions).
He could have gone to HR and complained. He could have played up being “the victim.” He could have tried to leverage the man’s actions against him. He could have just “looked on the bright side” by ignoring the incident.
Instead, my friend carefully considered what happened and has determined to extend a hand of friendship to the man at every opportunity. It might be said that he is “turning the other cheek.” He turned woe in something better.
I hope to learn by my friend’s example.
Time for a walk.
With two full months of 2015 completed, it has been a year of the unexpected. At our house, 2015 has been repeatedly called “The Year of Woe.”
Among our circle of friends and acquaintances have been unexpected deaths, an extraordinary high amount of newly diagnosed sickness and worsening conditions, and even fatal accidents involving pets.
Way down on the list of things to be woeful about is a cancelled trip to India that had been planned for almost four years.
It would be easy to get depressed (anger takes too much energy, so I would choose depression), but that’s no answer.
“Looking on the bright side,” even whistling it, doesn't cut it.
So here’s what I choose: take a walk. Take a long walk. Since March 1, 2013, when I first started keeping track, I’ve walked 462 times, covering 1,170 miles and burned 176,458 calories. I don’t want to know how many calories I’ve taken in.
Walking helps. It exercises me and the dog (Luca). It gets me the fresh air I need. It gives me time to plan and sometimes helps me compose these writings.
Yesterday I wasn't listening to anything in the ear buds except the wind, my footsteps, and the occasional sound of a runner surprised to see Luca. (I’ll write about him some other time). As shown on the map, I went to Pine Gully Park, on Galveston Bay. There, with an atypical wind chill, I recalled a lunch there a few years ago with an international couple. It was windy that day, too, when they fired up a charcoal grill. We had an outdoor conversation and memorably grilled steak on a day more suited for kite flying.
Yesterday I called that male half of that couple, just to tell him I had returned to the site of our lunch and to see how he and his wife (and now child) are doing. He told me many good things about their life in America and about one troubling conversation in which he was targeted. A co-worker stunned a room full of colleagues by expressing his desire that all of my friend’s countrymen be killed. Then the man left the room.
Whoa! What happened? My friend was “the bigger man” (the person who is more mature than the opposite person, the person who makes more mature decisions).
He could have gone to HR and complained. He could have played up being “the victim.” He could have tried to leverage the man’s actions against him. He could have just “looked on the bright side” by ignoring the incident.
Instead, my friend carefully considered what happened and has determined to extend a hand of friendship to the man at every opportunity. It might be said that he is “turning the other cheek.” He turned woe in something better.
I hope to learn by my friend’s example.
Time for a walk.