WHEN TURTLES FLY*
Saturday, January 2, 2021 - daily column # 6625
For those who struggle, call me. Call someone. Call for help. Reach out to 911. Don’t let your life be lost. I’ve lost my way, many times. I speak, not from wisdom necessarily, but certainly from experience.
Getting back on track and out of the ditch has proven difficult beyond imagination but always worth it. Difficulty can be a speed bump or an excruciating cliff-drop. One person’s speed bump can be someone else’s impossibly cliff – and yet another someone’s impossible dream.
To those who think life is impossible, this column is for you:
Stay shelled.
Be conservative.
Don’t accept risk.
Stay alert, fellow turtles.
Every turtle must stick its neck out to get anywhere.
So, be clear where you’re headed or led. Somewhere fun, I hope, somewhere happy – on a plane, beach, or mountain top.
Or are you considering some last resort?
I speak to those who’ve mislaid their hope, whose grip on their last strand is stretched beyond tenuous – go ahead, let go – if you don’t want to live.
Nobody can make you want your life.
If you don’t want to try something scary, nobody can force you.
And, to those who are confidently healthy, forceful, unyielding, and stable – you CAN help those who’ve lost their way …
But before we invest time, saving others, we have to protect ourselves.
That sounds cowardly, but rather, it’s heroic.
As instructions on every flight warn, “put your own mask on first – then attend to others.”
Everyday life needs to be like that.
It seems simple enough when we have children; they need so much from us. We need to be strong, present and need to be well – physically and emotionally. We get older, our accountability to others, tenuous or no longer required, it seems less necessary we be ‘OK,’ we are less needed to be ‘strong ones.’
Nothing could be further from the truth. If life teaches nothing else, it should be: we have a choice to be valuable or useful to help others, to support some cause, or to do something which improves the human condition of at least one human.
Else we’re just taking up space, consuming resources needed by other turtles who soar.
p.s.: today is ‘world introvert day’, which might easily be described as ‘everybody day’, because we are all introverts, ever envious of extroverts, without realizing they are just introverts who fake it better than we do
Reader feedback:
Re: “ May this be the best year of your life, or of mine.” - This is not an either/ or proposition, Mark; rather, I hope this will be the best year of your life, and of mine! Cheers!, RH, Calgary, AB
Happy New Year Mark, May your year be on of great health, much happiness and an abundance of prosperity. Oh, and stay safe, PT, Calgary, AB
Hi Mark, Wishing you all the best in this new year. Thanks for the musings, I really appreciate them! TA, Calgary, AB
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