“A mistake that makes you humble is better than an achievement that makes you arrogant.”
-Unknown
Life humbles us all. There will come a time in all our lives when we are going to need help from someone.
Sincerely, flat-out need help. Perhaps that means needing help with literally fixing a flat on the side of the road, or directions from being lost.
At worse points it means needing to borrow money for bills, and finding somewhere to sleep. We all need help at times.
Help when possible, because I am willing to gamble that life is going to knock everyone face down in the dirt at some point.
The cruelty of humanity is 100% inclusive, and affects people from all ages, all areas around the world, and all tax brackets in life.
Life can swiftly, and painfully knock a person 100 notches down on the ladder, and with no remorse.
We can’t do it ALL by ourselves (trust me, you can’t).
No one is exempt from this truth of life, and when that day comes along, it might be you dependent on the kindness of others. Be mindful of the words said out loud, and your treatment of others when you are on the upsides of life.
The way you treat other people should not be based after the circumstances in which you are in.
It is easy to look at someone else’s struggles, and judge another’s life from outside the glasshouse without personally knowing what it means to be living that way, but tables can be turned. Gilded empires have fallen just as slums and ghettos have, many times over.
“There are two ways to look at life. One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is.”
-Albert Einstein
“A great man is always willing to be little.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
I pride myself in keeping a well-rounded perspective on life.
I have seen both side of the proverbial train tracks.
I grew up comfortable middle class. I did not have the struggles of knowing how I was going to eat, or things of that nature as a child, and I was also somewhat spoiled by comparison to other people my age.
I don’t say this to brag though, because I knew a lot of people who did not grow up in the same circumstances.
I had friends whose parents had a permissive parenting style.
That is my eloquent way of saying their parents essentially didn’t care enough to raise them, or even provide the bare minimum necessities.
I am an intensely empathic person and was then as well. I couldn’t help but to hurt for my friends, and the people I cared about, because to no fault of their own, they were dealt an extraordinarily crappy hand, for a lack of a better term right now.
We all go through rough patches, and hard times, but it is in these times of hardship that gratitude is simpler to apply, because when all hope feels obsolete, and as if there’s nothing of value left to your life, is when even the smallest moments can feel like miracles.
The worth of a human being should not be based on their net worth, or the material items they possess. If money purely dictated how we gauged the worth of a person, Jeffrey Epstein would be considered a saint, and I’m sure to an extent most people can admit that is not the case, and vice versa.
A person should not be considered lesser than, because they don’t live in a high tax bracket, or can’t afford finer luxuries in life. Should the amount of material possessions REALLY determine a being’s worth?
What if there was a person, who’s genuinely kind, and compassionate towards others, but is poor and owns little to nothing in worldly possessions? Would they still be considered inferior to people, who have a thousands times more money, but are corrupt individuals?
Money does not equate to value, and worth.
I say in 2021, we drop these ideologies that what we own means we are worth more, because it only feeds our feelings of not being good enough, and the feelings of worthlessness. We all have purpose, and a way to make the world better.
We hold a valuable space in the universe, and I promise it has nothing to do with what you are wearing, how many cars you own, or yachts and diamonds.
This year, I say we pull out our eyes of sympathy, and compassion. No more division. No more separation of classes felt in the heart, and soul. We are all human, one in the same. Never meant to be compared, but all the same at the core.
We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.
-Stephen Hawking
You, Me, and Borderline 