The Modest Miracle

How far would you go to help someone in need? To the end of the street? To the end of the world? How far should you go? As frustration drips from your fingers or your brows furrow as your arms grow weak.   The best you give is only the best you can. Step toward them with your heart wide open and keys jangling in the ignition.   Now or never.   You or no one.   Let's ride. More critical than the NBA title, but less publicized than the new McDonald's grill buzzer. A crystallized droplet of life hangs suspended before you.   Long time, no see. You brush against it with a thumb as you pass, a subtle salutation. But your destination lies beyond it, far beyond the edge where harsh reality tumbles down into the waters below, crashing against rocks.   There is no sun or rain or anger or dingy therapists' offices.   There is only an outstretched hand. It's all you can offer. Yet you stand firmly.   Your ...

Yes, you should settle for less than perfection.   In fact, the farther from it, the better. Did that get a rise out of you?   Or at least catch your attention long enough to give the rest of this post a shot?   Don't worry, I didn't mean that in a moral sense.   Complete honesty and integrity are always the best policy.   But there are other ways we seek perfection, ways that can be a real pain. Have you ever been annoyed that you had to stand in line? Upset that things took longer than they should? Riled up by another's comment that wasn't phrased sensitively? Distressed by procedures that increase hassle and minimize effectiveness? Disappointed that you had to give more than your share? If so, you're probably relatively normal.   You're also probably a bit of a perfectionist, in a completely different way than how people normally use the term.   Rather than imposing perfect standards on yourself, you try to ...

The people we should consider heroes are the weak ones who just keep going.   After all, they’re the ones who don’t have a supportive audience calling their names from the rafters, egging them on to victory.   They’re the ones who don’t have a shiny, bright identity tailor-fit to their shape and studded with the admiration for those around them.   The strong don’t have to look deep inside to know who they are.   They define themselves in inches, the number of inches between them and second place.   Their name is written in trophies and broken records and from come-from-behind-to-win-it-all stories.   The world spells it out for them.   It’s hard to be strong.   It means that you have to push your muscles harder and more frequently than the next guy.   It means worrying that everything you’ve done will crumble to powder with the next attempt at excellence. But what does that compare to the plight of the weak?   The p...

We are a society of criticism.  We've created an industry for it; there isn't any form of entertainment or art it doesn't touch.  Music, literature, food, movies, sport politics, it's all included.  Each of us has had a personal brush with it every time we had a paper graded in school or played a wrong note on an instrument.  Given how much we're surrounded by it, is it really that surprising that we have a tendency to be a little critical ourselves?  We've all done it, even if only to mentally sketch out an alternate ending to that movie or bewail the less-than-stellar season of a favorite team.  The irony is that the one thing we haven't bothered to critique is criticism itself. So to add irony to irony, that's exactly what I'm going to do. It all started with 8th grade English. We had just finished reading Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian novel depicting a dire future of information repression where books are systematically sought o...

It's in your hands. What are you going to do with it?           The very fabric of society is dependent on people doing the right thing because it is the right thing.   The amount of trust we give it is nothing short of astounding.   If it doesn't seem that way to you in light of terrorist attacks around the world, politicians fighting for power, and monolithic companies out to get a quick cash grab, that's probably a good thing.   It means that you feel like you should be able to hold people to a higher standard of trust  than you do and you're right.   But that doesn't take away from the incredible amount of trust we already have in each other.           If everyone at the grocery store tried to shoplift, it would go out of business regardless of how many measures they put in place to catch people.           If...