I ran across this little tidbit today, and since I haven't been doing much with quotes recently, I thought I'd get back in the game. It may seem odd, but I love to work with quotes and write about them. In the end--every time--I've learned way more about myself than I knew at the beginning. With that in mind, let's try this one out:
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young. Compassionate with the aged. sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because, someday in life you will have been all of these."
Hmm...primarily because I'm 71 years old, I feel safe in suggesting that this is a good quote. I'm confident that I know whereof I speak. Obviously, I've been young and, just as obviously, I'm openly flirting with "aged." I have striven when I needed to and, like nearly everyone else, I've had hours of weakness, interrupted--if I'm lucky--by moments of strength. I don't think about it a lot, but I've lived the life...for better and worse.
"Tender with the young..." I know I've been tender with the babies. Everyone is tender and careful and soft with babies. That's what they're for. Whatever the magic human instinct is--we mostly melt when we're holding a baby. Especially when it's our own. I still remember Grandma, only a few weeks before she died, coming out of her foggy, confused and frightened inner world, focusing for a few seconds inches from Jackson's face, saying: "Aren't you just the cutest thing!" Those were the last understandable words I ever heard her utter, but in that brief moment, she was tender and loving with the young. She recognized her own baby's baby's baby.
Whereas, I can speak with some confidence of babies, this quote actually speaks of "the young" and therein lies the rub. I was not always tender with the young. I have yelled and threatened the young. (my young--I stay away from other women's young.) I have swatted the young. I have been extremely irritated with the young and prayed (Dear God...) that nap time or bedtime or the new school year would PLEASE, JUST GET HERE!
"Compassionate with the aged..." This one really makes me nervous. As much as I loved my mother--she was the first person I called with good news--(I always tried to keep the bad to myself), and as much as I wanted her to love me, I don't think I was nearly as compassionate with her as I should have been. I tried...I really did, but compassion wasn't my closest companion. I'm a little too self-centered for compassion. I tried to help. I tried to include. I tried to visit often, but I know it wasn't enough. I didn't look under the obstacles or around the obstacles...I left them in the middle of the path and became trapped behind them. I can remember one phone call--received after I had been dieting for a few months--and it was my mother asking if I was all right because her friends said I looked like hell. I should have laughed. I mean, Really! In retrospect it's a great story but, instead, I seethed. For months. It was a sometimes difficult relationship, but still one deserving of much more compassion.
"Sympathetic with the striving..." My first reaction to this phrase was a question: Do strivers really need sympathy? I've always thought they were just doing their thing and were quite content in the process. But then I went to Wikipedia, my source for everything. George Washington Carver (the peanut guy) wrote this quote. I had never thought of him as a quote-ster but, now we know he was. As I read about his life--each experience more sad and horrific than the one before--I began to have a different take. George Washington Carver was a definite striver and notably prickly. Perhaps prickly because, on top of living that horrendous life, he was black, and that fact alone had kept this brilliant man out of educational institutions all across this country. Including those in Kansas.
Our quote has begun to take on a slightly different tone. Bear with me here.
I have learned over the last two years that I spent a fair amount of time in, for lack of a better and much less dramatic word, "survival mode." I didn't originate that thought but, when presented, I began to understand its truth. I was 25 in April of 1970 when I moved from Windom, MN, back to Dodge City, leaving TJG behind. I intended to divorce him and build a life for Mickie and myself. Once the shock of that decision and the process of carrying it out began to work its way through my life, I realized that the only person responsible for Mickie and for me, was me. It was all in my ballpark. That's scary...but surprisingly good at the same time. At that moment, or shortly thereafter, I became a striver. I didn't think of myself that way. I was simply doing what had to be done and it seemed the most natural thing in the world. But, I swear to God, if a mountain had shown up on the road ahead of me, I could have moved it. By myself. With my bare hands.
Was I obnoxious? I didn't think so, but I know my thought process was different. My priorities were different. My goals were different. And, I would move heaven or hell to attain them. And I did. It was good practice, because sixteen years later I had to do the whole damned thing all over again. That time I put my striver uniform back on and became single-minded, strong and driven. I don't know if anyone out there had any idea of what was behind my behavior, and it really didn't matter. I had my family and myself to hold together. If I thought I was scared the first time, I was terrified in 1986. So...sympathy for the striver? I think I get it.
Which brings us to the closing lines, "tolerant of the weak and the strong." I do believe that in today's world we have become intolerant of the weak. Too many times we label them lazy, or manipulators. It sometimes separates the Republicans from the Democrats. And, our left brain from our right. I have to come down on the side that we are all "Hostages to Fortune" and that "There but for the Grace of God,,," is as true today as when my mother said it decades ago.
But "weak" has a lot of faces and we may not recognize it. I believe weak sometimes masquerades as strong and confuses us no end. We think we recognize strong, but we don't always recognize what is driving it. Or hanging over its head. Tolerant of the strong? I think I can get that, too!
Now, my loves, to the crux of the matter. Please re-read GWC's quote, because I have some words of wisdom! I've talked on and on (and on) about what we should do for others, but my guess is that GWC might be telling us to turn that around and apply it to ourselves, because...we will (or have been) all those things at sometime in our lives (conscious or not). And, we may need a little love, tolerance, and forgiveness for ourselves, from ourselves. Sometimes that's hard to grasp. Most of the time that's hard to grasp. Whereas, we're often taught to be kind to others, we're not often directed to be kind to ourselves. Because...isn't loving our self just a little bit narcissistic? It's much easier to forgive a co-worker who dropped a nasty comment the other day than yourself, for that really tacky faux pas you committed last week. But it may be an even better thing to do.
My generation was raised to be critical of itself. We didn't get a lot of "love yourself" and "forgive yourself" stuff. It was more likely to be just the opposite. I believe you were raised in a much better time, and can accept some of this touchy-feely talk more than I ever could. And, I believe that's a good thing. So, I'm asking that you take that kindness that resides in each of you and apply it to yourselves every now and then. Don't be stingy. Be kind to you...and that would make your Mom very happy indeed!
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young. Compassionate with the aged. sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because, someday in life you will have been all of these."
Hmm...primarily because I'm 71 years old, I feel safe in suggesting that this is a good quote. I'm confident that I know whereof I speak. Obviously, I've been young and, just as obviously, I'm openly flirting with "aged." I have striven when I needed to and, like nearly everyone else, I've had hours of weakness, interrupted--if I'm lucky--by moments of strength. I don't think about it a lot, but I've lived the life...for better and worse.
"Tender with the young..." I know I've been tender with the babies. Everyone is tender and careful and soft with babies. That's what they're for. Whatever the magic human instinct is--we mostly melt when we're holding a baby. Especially when it's our own. I still remember Grandma, only a few weeks before she died, coming out of her foggy, confused and frightened inner world, focusing for a few seconds inches from Jackson's face, saying: "Aren't you just the cutest thing!" Those were the last understandable words I ever heard her utter, but in that brief moment, she was tender and loving with the young. She recognized her own baby's baby's baby.
Whereas, I can speak with some confidence of babies, this quote actually speaks of "the young" and therein lies the rub. I was not always tender with the young. I have yelled and threatened the young. (my young--I stay away from other women's young.) I have swatted the young. I have been extremely irritated with the young and prayed (Dear God...) that nap time or bedtime or the new school year would PLEASE, JUST GET HERE!
"Compassionate with the aged..." This one really makes me nervous. As much as I loved my mother--she was the first person I called with good news--(I always tried to keep the bad to myself), and as much as I wanted her to love me, I don't think I was nearly as compassionate with her as I should have been. I tried...I really did, but compassion wasn't my closest companion. I'm a little too self-centered for compassion. I tried to help. I tried to include. I tried to visit often, but I know it wasn't enough. I didn't look under the obstacles or around the obstacles...I left them in the middle of the path and became trapped behind them. I can remember one phone call--received after I had been dieting for a few months--and it was my mother asking if I was all right because her friends said I looked like hell. I should have laughed. I mean, Really! In retrospect it's a great story but, instead, I seethed. For months. It was a sometimes difficult relationship, but still one deserving of much more compassion.
"Sympathetic with the striving..." My first reaction to this phrase was a question: Do strivers really need sympathy? I've always thought they were just doing their thing and were quite content in the process. But then I went to Wikipedia, my source for everything. George Washington Carver (the peanut guy) wrote this quote. I had never thought of him as a quote-ster but, now we know he was. As I read about his life--each experience more sad and horrific than the one before--I began to have a different take. George Washington Carver was a definite striver and notably prickly. Perhaps prickly because, on top of living that horrendous life, he was black, and that fact alone had kept this brilliant man out of educational institutions all across this country. Including those in Kansas.
Our quote has begun to take on a slightly different tone. Bear with me here.
I have learned over the last two years that I spent a fair amount of time in, for lack of a better and much less dramatic word, "survival mode." I didn't originate that thought but, when presented, I began to understand its truth. I was 25 in April of 1970 when I moved from Windom, MN, back to Dodge City, leaving TJG behind. I intended to divorce him and build a life for Mickie and myself. Once the shock of that decision and the process of carrying it out began to work its way through my life, I realized that the only person responsible for Mickie and for me, was me. It was all in my ballpark. That's scary...but surprisingly good at the same time. At that moment, or shortly thereafter, I became a striver. I didn't think of myself that way. I was simply doing what had to be done and it seemed the most natural thing in the world. But, I swear to God, if a mountain had shown up on the road ahead of me, I could have moved it. By myself. With my bare hands.
Was I obnoxious? I didn't think so, but I know my thought process was different. My priorities were different. My goals were different. And, I would move heaven or hell to attain them. And I did. It was good practice, because sixteen years later I had to do the whole damned thing all over again. That time I put my striver uniform back on and became single-minded, strong and driven. I don't know if anyone out there had any idea of what was behind my behavior, and it really didn't matter. I had my family and myself to hold together. If I thought I was scared the first time, I was terrified in 1986. So...sympathy for the striver? I think I get it.
Which brings us to the closing lines, "tolerant of the weak and the strong." I do believe that in today's world we have become intolerant of the weak. Too many times we label them lazy, or manipulators. It sometimes separates the Republicans from the Democrats. And, our left brain from our right. I have to come down on the side that we are all "Hostages to Fortune" and that "There but for the Grace of God,,," is as true today as when my mother said it decades ago.
But "weak" has a lot of faces and we may not recognize it. I believe weak sometimes masquerades as strong and confuses us no end. We think we recognize strong, but we don't always recognize what is driving it. Or hanging over its head. Tolerant of the strong? I think I can get that, too!
Now, my loves, to the crux of the matter. Please re-read GWC's quote, because I have some words of wisdom! I've talked on and on (and on) about what we should do for others, but my guess is that GWC might be telling us to turn that around and apply it to ourselves, because...we will (or have been) all those things at sometime in our lives (conscious or not). And, we may need a little love, tolerance, and forgiveness for ourselves, from ourselves. Sometimes that's hard to grasp. Most of the time that's hard to grasp. Whereas, we're often taught to be kind to others, we're not often directed to be kind to ourselves. Because...isn't loving our self just a little bit narcissistic? It's much easier to forgive a co-worker who dropped a nasty comment the other day than yourself, for that really tacky faux pas you committed last week. But it may be an even better thing to do.
My generation was raised to be critical of itself. We didn't get a lot of "love yourself" and "forgive yourself" stuff. It was more likely to be just the opposite. I believe you were raised in a much better time, and can accept some of this touchy-feely talk more than I ever could. And, I believe that's a good thing. So, I'm asking that you take that kindness that resides in each of you and apply it to yourselves every now and then. Don't be stingy. Be kind to you...and that would make your Mom very happy indeed!
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