| An Attitude Toward Life |
By: Lois Kellerman, Columnist, “Mother Knows Best”
On 2/18/06
I am a person of persistent and stubborn hope. I see silver linings larger than the clouds they adorn. I trace the path of possibility like an ultimate truth even as it meanders in a thin line through desert sand.
| "Let them learn that the greatest gift we have received from reality is our capacity to choose, and to know that we are choosing." |
Truly (reason consoles me) wherever there is something rather than nothing there is reason to rejoice. As an old Jewish woman who had survived Nazi persecution once told me while helping me to scrub a hate message off a brick wall, “Where there is life there is hope.”
Perhaps it is this sort of unmitigated optimism that led me to urge my mother from my perch on her mother’s half-open coffin not to worry. After all, grandma was just taking a nap. Well, I was only seven. And I had bonded with a clan of wishful thinkers.
For a long time in the middle of my life I substituted cynicism for my original optimism. It seemed the smart thing to do; the sophisticated thing. And besides, it took away some of the pangs associated with receiving unwanted news. It made me feel more in control of my life during troubling times, lowering standards, and numbing disappointments. After all, what could one expect in such a crazy world?
One day as the circle of my life started sloping down I realized I had chosen a trail of poisoned bread crumbs. It had, through the escalating exigencies of my life, led to the edge of a precipice. I leaned over and peered down into a mean looking abyss and in the darkest of the dark had to confess to myself that I’d lied.
I was not immune to the slings and arrows of uncertainty. I hurt. Sometimes badly, because I deeply cared about life, about its potential for purpose, and most importantly since I had sent my son out into the world as a seeker, about the possibility of a better future for all. I made a choice to turn around. And then I turned.
When is optimism not warranted? I don’t know, and neither does anyone else, because the place in our heads where crystal balls were once figuratively stored was slowly taken over by upper brain-matter. This eviction of sooth-saying ghosts from the galley of human perception allowed room for higher, more accurate forms of “prophecy” to emerge.
At some point superstitions—which offered a primitive form of social protection—were replaced by more accurate social road-maps. Ethical reasoning and moral values such as “What is hateful unto you don’t do unto your neighbor” (Hillel, Shabatt 31a) emerged.
Slowly, across the great cultures that spawned the modern era, truth-telling replaced fortune-telling. And the voice of conscience (the still small voice within) stepped back to let people lead, while still following up the rear with important admonitions: “Don’t go that way. Remember how it got your ancestors into trouble? Do the right thing, the good thing—the thing that will help everyone to live happier and safer lives.”
“What is the most important thing I can teach my child?” parents often ask when I am teaching them how to build wholesome intergenerational communities.
“Choice” is what I have come to give as my answer. Let them learn that the greatest gift we have received from reality is our capacity to choose, and to know that we are choosing.”
“Start with little things,” I suggest. Say to the toddler, “Do you want green socks or red socks? Would you prefer orange or apple slices? Would you like to walk, or be carried to the car? And go on from there, always trying to offer choices that are healthy and that supports larger family goals.”
Later, you can start telling your children stories about choices, good and bad, people they know have made, with an emphasis on the positive. Stories from your own traditions will thicken their understanding of core values and the complex adult reality they must learn to navigate.”
If you keep at it, your children will slowly build up a model of how to choose wisely. That way, they’ll act on bigger issues that come their way with a sense of confidence. And perhaps most important in such fast-paced, uncertain times, they’ll have practice in choosing, day after day, a positive attitude toward life.
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