"They think they can do anything.", "They act as if they're invincible.", or "They only think of themselves." These comments, and others like them, have been uttered for years by the elderly as they look at "kids these days".
I used to be confused whenever I heard such statements. They didn't really make all that much sense to me, so I just set them aside, not paying them much attention. However, looking back at my memories I can't help but concede that the older generation may actually be right. Each of their scathing comments are indeed founded upon a grain of truth. I mean, they've been there. Each and every person who utters such a statement has been the age that they currently look down upon, and for that reason speak not just according to what they've seen recently, but also according to their experiences.
Each "old-timer" can look back on his/her life and remember the times when anything could be done. When they believed they were invincible, and as a result of that ended up being fixated on themselves. I'm sure that if you look back on your life you can think of those times too, and if you can't that probably means that you are currently situated in one of those times I'm describing.
I remember being at that stage, the stage where I thought I was INVINCIBLE! It began when I was in grade one or two. I hadn't reached the point where I thought I knew everything, but I did believe that everything knew me! I had somehow come to the conclusion that I was of such import to the world that everyone and everything knew who I was. Why did they know who I was, you may ask? Because I was invincible. Nothing could hurt or hinder me, and that's just the way it was. Or so I thought.
Then Experiences began to crop up that proved me wrong; they proved to me my own mortality. When I was in grade three I enjoyed being on the Cross Country team. I wasn't the best, but I certainly wasn't the worst. The best in our grade was Jason. We would go to practice with the other grades and he still ended up within the top five! But then something happened. On one of our runs he and this other guy were vying for position as they headed into the home stretch. Then, somehow, Jason got tripped. He fell and scraped his knee, though when I say scraped I mean 110 x worse than the everyday scrape when a child asks for you to kiss his/her boo-boo. You could literally see his knee cap, and an ambulance rushed him to the hospital. As a young kid that sight definitely put a damper on my feelings of invincibility.
A few years later I was again reminded just how mortal we are. I was on my school's basketball team and it seemed that this year was plagued by deaths. I can't remember how many condolence cards our coach passed around to show our sympathy for one player, then another, and then another. The following year I received a card of my own as my Opa (grandfather in Dutch) succumbed to his own mortality and passed away.
These experiences, and others like it stood out in stark contrast to the view I had had of my own invincibility. I began to realize that everything has its consequences and nothing really lasts for ever, least of all our lives. Don't get me wrong, I have a strong conviction, and attest to the fact that there is life after the death of our mortal bodies. We do have more to look forward to, but we need to realize our own mortality. No matter how hard we try to set it aside the temporal nature of life is just, temporary.
As I reflected on these experiences and all I have learned from them, I couldn't help but wonder if I was doing enough about it. Life is short, so why put things off for tomorrow that can be done today? I don't have regrets about my life, but I want to keep it that way. Life is too short to look back at something that's been left undone, and then wonder how things could have been different. And so I ask...
...if you were to die tomorrow, how would you live today? Are you living that way?
Just a thought to keep in mind.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Injustice
It amazes me just how unjust people can be. We are more than willing to recognize the faults of others but are loathe to look at the truth about ourselves, even when that truth reveals us doing the selfsame thing we revile against within another person.
When I was in High School a large number of students from our school went to Europe for the 90th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge. It was an amazing experience! We started out in London, England, then traveled to Dover stopping at a number of historical sights along the way. We then crossed over to France where we traveled to Paris stopping en route at Vimy Ridge. But the part of the experience that I want to underline took place before we even left North America.
It was early morning when we boarded the bus at our school and headed to Detroit, Michigan. There we caught a plane to Chicago and then transferred to an international flight that took us to London. This took place after 9/11, so airport security was fairly high, and that's an understatement. My high school was known for it's ESL (English as a Second Language) program and so we had a large number of students who had recently immigrated to Canada from other countries. As a result of this we also had a high percentage of the student population who ascribed to the Islamic faith, and quite a few of them were going on this trip. It was so sad to see the blatant discrimination that took place as these students, all of them legal Canadians, were forced to undergo more searches and lengthier questioning than any of the others. Because of security staff associating terrorist acts with a culture rather than only with the extremist group who perpetrated such activities these students got the short end of the stick.
It was interesting to later hear some of these students complain amongst themselves as to how they were being treated. And to be honest, I couldn't blame them for it. But the thing that struck me as odd was to then hear these same individuals speak out against the Jewish people as a whole. Now I understand that there has been a lengthy history of anger and fighting between the Israeli people and other Middle Eastern countries, but that's Israel not all people of Jewish descent. It disgusted me that one minute they complained about the United States generalizing against themselves off of one portion of their people, and then the next second they generalized against Jews basing their deductions on just a single group. The hypocrisy and injustice in such a situation astounded and appalled me.
As I look back at that experience I can't help but think of numerous times where others have done the same thing; been angry about something and then turn around and do the same thing to another. That's become one of my biggest pet-peeves, but I'm not saying that I'm immune to engaging in such conflicting action. Though I can't think of specific examples where I've done that, I'm sure that other people could.
In reflecting on such injustice I can't help but wonder why, when each of us can quote the saying "to err is human", do we not cut each other some slack? But I think that the knowledge of such a fact, that each and everyone of make mistakes, is really the problem. We begin to define one another by those errors. Those definitions turn into labels, and the labels then extend to the group rather than the individual. But though it is true that "to err is human", to err does not define humanity. There is so much more about a person than just the mistakes he/she has made, makes today, or will make in the litany of tomorrows.
In allowing the errors of mankind to be the determiner for our actions we blind ourselves to what humanity truly is, and what an individual is capable of. I mean, we don't look at ourselves and just see what mistakes we've made, we acknowledge those mistakes and then strive to make them right. It is in the nature of mankind to err, but it is also in the heart of humanity that sorrow for error takes root and motivates repentance.
So why should we focus on the fact that "to err is human" when that is only one facet of beautiful jewel that humanity is?
When I was in High School a large number of students from our school went to Europe for the 90th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge. It was an amazing experience! We started out in London, England, then traveled to Dover stopping at a number of historical sights along the way. We then crossed over to France where we traveled to Paris stopping en route at Vimy Ridge. But the part of the experience that I want to underline took place before we even left North America.
It was early morning when we boarded the bus at our school and headed to Detroit, Michigan. There we caught a plane to Chicago and then transferred to an international flight that took us to London. This took place after 9/11, so airport security was fairly high, and that's an understatement. My high school was known for it's ESL (English as a Second Language) program and so we had a large number of students who had recently immigrated to Canada from other countries. As a result of this we also had a high percentage of the student population who ascribed to the Islamic faith, and quite a few of them were going on this trip. It was so sad to see the blatant discrimination that took place as these students, all of them legal Canadians, were forced to undergo more searches and lengthier questioning than any of the others. Because of security staff associating terrorist acts with a culture rather than only with the extremist group who perpetrated such activities these students got the short end of the stick.
It was interesting to later hear some of these students complain amongst themselves as to how they were being treated. And to be honest, I couldn't blame them for it. But the thing that struck me as odd was to then hear these same individuals speak out against the Jewish people as a whole. Now I understand that there has been a lengthy history of anger and fighting between the Israeli people and other Middle Eastern countries, but that's Israel not all people of Jewish descent. It disgusted me that one minute they complained about the United States generalizing against themselves off of one portion of their people, and then the next second they generalized against Jews basing their deductions on just a single group. The hypocrisy and injustice in such a situation astounded and appalled me.
As I look back at that experience I can't help but think of numerous times where others have done the same thing; been angry about something and then turn around and do the same thing to another. That's become one of my biggest pet-peeves, but I'm not saying that I'm immune to engaging in such conflicting action. Though I can't think of specific examples where I've done that, I'm sure that other people could.
In reflecting on such injustice I can't help but wonder why, when each of us can quote the saying "to err is human", do we not cut each other some slack? But I think that the knowledge of such a fact, that each and everyone of make mistakes, is really the problem. We begin to define one another by those errors. Those definitions turn into labels, and the labels then extend to the group rather than the individual. But though it is true that "to err is human", to err does not define humanity. There is so much more about a person than just the mistakes he/she has made, makes today, or will make in the litany of tomorrows.
In allowing the errors of mankind to be the determiner for our actions we blind ourselves to what humanity truly is, and what an individual is capable of. I mean, we don't look at ourselves and just see what mistakes we've made, we acknowledge those mistakes and then strive to make them right. It is in the nature of mankind to err, but it is also in the heart of humanity that sorrow for error takes root and motivates repentance.
So why should we focus on the fact that "to err is human" when that is only one facet of beautiful jewel that humanity is?
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