You Cannot Do A Kindness Too Soon

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again. ~Og Mandino

On a somber note today -

Please bear with me - due to the confidential nature of the incident, I have to be careful in how I word this post.

About a week ago, I met someone whose reputation as a drug addict preceded them. Their behavior on our first meeting confirmed this. I was annoyed and a bit angry, but after some thought I decided that I would offer compassion and support instead of judgment at our next meeting, which was scheduled for yesterday. Goddess - and my friends and family - knows that my own actions have been less than perfect over this past year. I realized that if they were in such bad shape they probably needed some understanding.

But someone else showed up instead and when I asked about them, I was told that they had died that morning. It's unclear as to whether it was an accident or a suicide.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The fact that I didn't have time to do that kindness before it was too late doesn't redeem me. I feel that I should have done something that day, but of course, I had to think about it first before I was able to do the "right" thing. I shouldn't have had to think about it. My heart knows that none of us have the right to judge anyone but my head doesn't always follow.

Please take a moment to send loving thoughts to their spirit and family, especially a significant other who is devastated.

Be well, and be blessed.
Parthena



Related Links:

Intervention: Helping Convince Addicts They Need Help

Words Can Kill

Meditate and Teach Your Brain Compassion

kindness,compassion,spirituality,death,suicide,depression,addiction

What If It Was Always Easy?

Today's daily e-mail from The Universe prompted a bit of contemplation:

Would it be as much fun, Parthena, if you never stopped laughing? If there were never any clouds? If you were never challenged? If you were never alone? If you never heard the whole truth when it hurt? If you always knew what would happen, what to do, and where to go?

Or would you be like, "Beam me down, Bro!"

Abraham-Hicks also brings this up when referring to the Art of Allowing Both are elaborating on the concept that difficult times make us who we are. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." I agree with this to a large extent. I've survived many challenging experiences and have been able to draw upon them not only to get through present challenges but also to help others personally and professionally. My experiences with physical disability and grief have given me an understanding of what the hospice patients I work with deal with so that I am better able than someone who has never been there to empathize with them. Some of these challenges have also turned out to be "blessings in disguise" and a great deal of my writing is based on these experiences. Without them I'd have a bit less to write about, especially since I'm not a fiction writer!

I do see one pitfall - the danger of becoming jaded or indifferent. For instance, the person who consistently gives to others but does not receive the same in return when they themselves are in need may eventually isolate themselves emotionally from other people, refusing to trust and enter into friendships or relationships. A negative cycle of belief is created when one works toward changing this expectation only to have yet another hurtful experience come along that proves the original belief "right."

This leads to very deep negative beliefs that are very resistant to change even with concentrated effort and then of course, the Law of Attraction would continue to bring this type of person into our lives. I'm at a loss to determine what, other than a strong series of unfailingly positive relationships coming into a person's life, could serve to correct this.

For some people, a crippling emotional disability called attachment disorder develops. Repetitive patterns of abuse and abandonment result in the inability to become close to anyone. Often, a person with attachment disorder develops a pattern of leaving the relationship or, more seriously, hurting the other person before they have a chance to hurt them. Frequently, there is an intuitive feeling that may or may not be based in truth that prompts the behavior. Those living with attachment disorder often come to accept loneliness as a necessary part of life but can also develop a strong sense of independence.

Just something to think about today in your dealings with others. Life is full of enough tragedies and challenges without human unkindness, cruelty and selfishness. The Prayer of St. Francis is a good guideline for all of us to live by:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.