Out with the old and in with the new! New Year’s Eve! The end of our past and the beginning of our future! All over the world, we count down the minutes and then seconds until a New Year begins. New Year’s Eve represents a finish and a time to put failures, bad dreams, and a year dominated by the Coronavirus behind us. New Year’s Day represents a new beginning. We pray and hope that each year will be better than the last. Curiously, we celebrate this ending with a night of wild parties and much drinking which is not a good way to start off the New Year. Thus, may I suggest a bit of Greek wisdom, “Moderation in all things.”
Do you ever wonder why so many people get drunk on New Year’s Eve? Is it simply to forget the past or is it to celebrate the past? How many New Year’s days have been ruined before they even got started? Tonight we drink, tomorrow we make promises about how different our lives will be and what changes we will make. Each New Years is a time 
of magic. We think it will mean great differences in our lives, but how long do these commitments usually last? Go to the health clubs on New Year’s Day and the parking lots will be full (Of course Covid 19 has changed this little fact). By early March, the parking lots will usually be back to their normal contingent of cars. The landscape will be littered with failed promises and failed New Year’s resolutions. Some may think that they can escape this debacle by simply not making any resolutions. Instead their failure to make any commitments remain with them day after day. Not making a commitment is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Thankfully, we have 365 chances each year to start our life anew. You don’t have to wait until New Year’s Day to begin again. Each day you fail, tomorrow can be a new start. If each day your commitments can last a little longer than the last time, you are making progress. You do not have to wait until next New Year to start over. Start now but get back up each time you fall. The only failure in life is not trying and trying again. Each time you fall down and you get up again you are a success. Each day that you make a new commitment to try, you are a success. Each time your commitment lasts a little bit longer than the last time you are a success. So here’s to the success of each of you this New Year. I drink a toast to all who try and try again.
Time for Questions:
What are you going to change in your life this New Year? What would you want to do differently? What changes would help you to lead a happier and healthier life? What are you going to do about it? How long will your commitment last? Can you fail and then keep trying?
Life is just beginning.
Tonight is the first day of your new life. Don’t wait to start.
You may have noticed that many great leaders seem to have had a sort of doppelganger or one who directly opposes their strategies and methods. Martin Luther King had Malcolm X. Sun Yat-sen had Zhang Binglin. Nelson Mandela had Steve Biko. Mahatma Gandhi had Subhash Bose. Each of these men had similar end goals but the conflicts with their compatriots came about because of the differences in their methods for reaching their goals. History remembers the winner of the conflicts and the loser is often only a footnote in the history of the winner’s biography.
Memories of the atrocities committed by the British in the 1857 uprising were still prevalent among the Indian population. There were atrocities on both sides, but even after the war was concluded, the British engaged in a number of substantial revenge and retribution attacks against the Indians suspected or known to have supported the uprising.
Perhaps Bose saw the writing on the wall. He is warning his supporters that they may “not see the promised land.” The promised land being independence for India. Nevertheless, they should remain committed to the effort.
My creativity takes a more practical bend. I refinished our Arizona kitchen and bathroom cupboards; made a dress I still haven’t worn and some flannel nightshirts for John to lounge around in as well as knit a bunch of baby sweaters and a couple of shawls to donate to Pilgrim Lutheran in Frederic. We’re enjoying raspberry jam from our wild bushes in the back yard. The summer project was to tackle the bookcase full of photo albums. That included albums from my parents, grandparents, great aunt, John’s albums, and everything I’ve accumulated in more than 50 years. Many bags into the trash, and I’m down to about 10 newly created albums which I will eventually move to AZ. Next summer I’ll start in on the travel pictures from all the places we have visited in the last 35 years.
Our second scenario involves going to church service. At the end of many services, the minister (Do Rabbis and Imams do this?) will wait at the door and greet the outgoing parishioners. Do you?
Our third and final scenario finds us on our ubiquitous freeway system wending our way to some appointment that we will probably be late to if the traffic stays so slow. Do you?
Ladies and Gentlemen. How can you have a government of the people, by the people and for the people when it is a government of the rich by the rich and for the rich? A government of lawyers, political science majors and corporate people. An interlocking network of proponents who have a self-interest that nowhere matches the nature and interests of the general public of America. 
Many of the board members in the rural counties are farmers or laborers or educators who have little or no training in the laws that they are sworn to protect. Thus, they rely heavily on the lawyers that they hire to provide advice and perceived protection from lawsuits. This renders the board members subject to the legal opinion of the lawyer which is quite often at odds to what the public wants. The boards are frequently fearful of a lawsuit (often offered by the lawyer as a possibility) and will forego making an informed decision based on evidence that is presented at the hearings. 
We need less lawyers. Lawyers and lawsuits are destroying America and Democracy. We need leaders with more diversity in education. We need leaders with more ethnic diversity. We need leaders with more gender diversity. We need greater representation that reflects the demographics of America. We need less lawyers. We need more justice and we need more fairness. 
The significance of these orientations cannot be underestimated. For instance, we have seen considerable controversy during the Covid Pandemic concerning masks, social distancing, and the closing of public and private venues such as businesses, restaurants, and religious organizations. Many countries have witnessed protests and even riots challenging restrictions in these areas. Basically, I suspect that research will show that countries higher in Individuality have resisted constraints more than countries that are higher in Collectivism or Group Orientation. 
The Japanese ethic during WWII was one of extreme fanaticism towards the Group Orientation. Few nations had anything even close to the Kamikaze or Banzai attacks that the Japanese army used against their opponents. In these attacks, the individual was expected to die for the good of their country. What differentiated these attacks from other attacks was the wanton disregard for the lives of the soldiers. It was a foregone conclusion that the individual soldier was going to die. Again, we see extreme dysfunction when one element of a dimension is pursued to the detriment of any rational balance.
I want to talk about Gratefulness today. It is the first in my list of the Key Seven Virtues that I think are worth developing. Gratefulness is the opposite of ingratitude. It is easy to fall into the trap of being ungrateful. The world besieges us with evidence of our incompetence and faults. Hollywood glamorizes the mundane and makes the rest of us feel inferior in comparison. American Idol becomes the graven image that we now worship. It is not an image of a gold calf or a prophet or a saint. It is the image of success and fame and fortune that we all desire. Even as I write this, millions of people are buying a lottery ticket in the hope of achieving instant wealth. How many of these people are grateful for what they have? I suspect many of them are very grateful in their daily lives, but it makes you wonder how grateful most people are when they will spend their money against all odds to become an overnight millionaire. What don’t they have that they will buy if they do win?
When I grew up, we always bought the cheapest. Karo syrup instead of Log Cabin, margarine instead of butter, bologna instead of capicola, Welch’s grape jelly instead of Smuckers, Velveeta instead of cheese and so on and so forth. I survived high school on bologna sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and potato sandwiches. Kids would always trade food in the lunchroom but in four years no one in the room would ever want any of my sandwiches. In fairness to my mom, she did the best she could on the meager food budget my father provided. He spent more money at the racetrack, or should I say with the bookies than he did on our household. Thus, I developed no taste for the so-called finer things in life and this extended to my taste in whiskey. As far as I was concerned and even knew, the cheaper the better.
A long, long time ago, (or so it seems now) and many whiskeys under the belt, Karen and I were returning from a trip to visit our daughter Megan who lived in Chandler. We were at the airport awaiting a somewhat delayed flight. We decided to pass the time in a restaurant near our gate. We sat down at a table and I noticed a flyer on the table advertising three different Tequilas. One glass sold for 2 dollars, another for 5 dollars and the third for 8 dollars. I cryptically remarked that “This is a joke. Only a sucker would pay 8 dollars since there is no difference between the three except the brand names.” Our waitress overheard me and disregarding the caveat that the customer is always right, she intruded and piously announced “You are wrong, there is a big difference. Would you care to try a flight with one of each?” I could not let the challenge go and I warned her that I was not impressed by how much things cost, and I would let her know what I thought. I assumed that I was getting the flight of three for free since it was her challenge, but she brought me the bill later and it included the cost of each drink.
I thought I would start the year of 2021 off with a positive slant. Namely, some things we can all do or practice to be better people. However, before anyone should pay any attention to what I am about to say, there are several questions they must ask themselves. I would advise you that the veracity and hence credibility of an author is critical to your acceptance of what the author is trying to sell you or convince you of. Do not buy an argument from someone who cannot be trusted. Think about the comment that “If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.” An uncritical acceptance of any idea is dangerous to your own integrity and responsibility. Hence, the questions I would want answered (If I were you) would be as follows: Who is this writer to say what the “greatest” virtues for a human are? How did he come up with these Seven Virtues? What is the difference between a virtue and a value? Is this an important difference or is he about to sell me another new religion?
I would like to answer that I am a seeker of truth and knowledge. I am very opinionated, often highly judgmental and have frequently been accused of being a “know it all.” Many people would write my opinions off as being too liberal while others would say that I am too rational. I place great value on being logical and trying to stay open to many possibilities. I have been studying philosophy and religion since I was eighteen. I have no degrees in either. But the number of books and articles and stories that I have read number in the hundreds. I have attended many different worship houses and types of religious services. I was brought up as a Catholic until I rejected its teachings at about the age of 10. When no one would give me a good answer for “Who made God?” I more or less decided that most religions were based on superstitions.
Given that one could easily comprise a list of ten or perhaps one hundred important virtues, why do I believe that my seven are the seven greatest and most important? How do I have the audacity to make such an assertion? I might have been sitting under an apple tree one day, or perhaps simply thinking about life at one of my yearly silent retreats at the Demontreville Retreat Center, when I compiled a list of seven virtues. While I truly “value” these ideas, I understand them more as virtues than values. I will address this difference later. I decided that I want to live by these virtues. Each day for the last fifteen or more years, I have selected one of these seven virtues to help guide me through the day. Whether it is patience, kindness or courage, each day I start by reflecting on this virtue and trying to make it a part of my life.
The danger in this discussion lies in your taking a sectarian or religious approach to my writings. I assure you that I am not a religious person. I may be a spiritual person but I do not think of myself in either of these categories. I am an agnostic who wants to live a better life and help build a world that is a better place to live for future generations. Living by these seven virtues is one way I believe I can contribute to this goal.
If I have satisfactorily answered the questions that I posed above respecting my integrity and credibility, I will now set off to address each of my Seven Virtues and explain why they are so important and the difference that I think they can make in our lives. Look for my virtues over the next several weeks in my blogs.
Aging Capriciously 