“You can get discouraged many times, but you are not a failure until
you begin to blame somebody else and stop trying.”
– John Burroughs: Naturalist and Essayist
“If you don’t have something nice to say about someone, then don’t say anything.”
If I heard those words from the lips of my mother once, I heard them dozens of times during her lifetime. It wasn’t just when I was a youngster, but as long as she was fit of mind, this idea tumbled out of her consciousness.
Why did she say them so often? Frankly, because she knew that incorporating this teaching is one of life’s most difficult lessons to learn.
My Aunt Nellie embodied this teaching. If a person (read me) began to complain about something or someone, this quiet woman would simply disengage and look at the floor until the words were finished. Then she would look up and suggest a cup of tea might be in order. If complaining falls on deaf ears, maybe there might be something better to chat about.
Blame and creation of somebody else, an other, upon which to place our own misery, discomfort or failure, was something the elder women in my family proactively worked to combat.
It’s an old story. If only that person would NOT do such and such…If those people weren’t here, life would be better…They are causing the troubles in my life, my city, my country. The problem, of course, is that when the other is finally removed or put away from our lives, we are no better off. It was never them…it was always the things we were taught and believed. Nothing comes from nothing, thoughts do not come from nowhere. We live our lives based on the things we have accepted to be true.
Maybe it’s us…
Walt Kelly, the American cartoonist, brought a character named Pogo to the pages of newspapers from 1948 until 1975. This series of comic strips conveyed humor and social satire.
One of the most enduring two panel cartoons appeared on Earth Day in 1971.
Panel one: Porkypine and Pogo in close up, appear to be tiptoeing across a shallow pond.
Porkypine: “Ah, Pogo, the beauty of the forest primeval gets me in the heart.
Pogo: “It gets me in the feet Porkypine.”
Panel two: The scene pulls back. Porkypine and Pogo are sitting on an exposed tree root, looking at a large area of discarded trash obscuring nature’s intended beauty.
Porkypine: “It’s hard walkin’ on this stuff.”
Pogo: “Yep, son, we have met the enemy and he is us.”
The cartoon was intended to admonish the carelessness with which we have destroyed nature by our selfishness, all the while not realizing that it is ourselves from whom we rob the potential beauty of life.
It really isn't us...
The truth, of course, is that the enemy is NOT somebody else nor us, but the things we have been taught and harbor within our hearts and minds.
My mother understood this principle and spent her time of life, teaching her children as much as she could about the decency of our humanity. She also lived by word and deed, doing all she could to help us understand, we were responsible for the things we put in our minds and the ideas we cultivated.
She knew, if she did not teach us, we would not know, and perhaps grow up to blame others for things that were our responsibility. Worse, that we would believe there was something wrong with us over which we had little or no control.
In a free-falling world of disrespect for ourselves and others, it might be worth appreciating the power of words…for good or evil.
I can’t change Dallas or Paris or Brussels or Medina or Bangladesh or Baghdad or Istanbul or the politic of separation and disrespect or the media lust for self-righteous indignation.
I can quiet my mind and continue to try not to contribute to the raging fires of discontent and at every opportunity work to find ways to encourage dialogue toward those with whom I disagree.
Internally, I will continue to proactively work on the narrative my mother so strongly advocated and lived.
“If you don’t have something nice to say about someone, then don’t say anything.”
