You can’t open a web browser, turn on the television, or speak to another person without seeing something about how the entire world has changed in the past few weeks. Schools, businesses, and even countries are closing. And the freedoms that most of us took for granted just a few short weeks ago are being limited for the greater good. Regardless of your stance on how and why your life and your daily routine have been altered. But has everything really changed?
During a challenging or stressful time, is it less important to be kind to others? Is it now justifiable to think of only yourself? Or are we still committed to living our lives according to the Golden Rule? That is a choice that each of us has to make. You have the ability to impact your community in a positive manner. It is your choice to say, everything has changed and stop at that. Or you can choose to say everything has changed, but nothing has really changed. And you can continue to live the Golden Rule.
Kathy, I love this because I love the Golden Rule— always have, always will—ever since I was a little girl, back in Worthington, Ohio. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. This is so foundational to a peaceful, just, sustainable and loving world, community, neighborhood and family, even between life partners and yes, between me, myself and I! It’s all about choice, which is what Viktor Frankl said when a prisoner in Germany during WWII: “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Kindness, thoughtfulness, and consideration is involuntary action for many of us. Many of us must help no matter what crisis we are in, and crisis is the best time to help. We can’t forget the Golden Rule. We must never forget the Golden Rule. Lovely piece.