Letters

Today is the day to do something about tomorrow

September 6, 2018   ·   0 Comments

Written By CONSTANCE SCRAFIELD

A person might not like the intensive heat that is usually part of a Canadian summer or a person might not like the biting cold of a Canadian winter but almost everyone agrees that the distinctive bursting energy and renewal of spring and the fresh, energizing cooling down of autumn are quite exciting.

Both of the “refreshing” seasons of spring and autumn dictate the comings and goings of the nation’s school attendees: they are released from their classrooms in spring and brought back to their desks in autumn.

Still and yet. There is a bit of a hackneyed, still pointed, saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

Yes it is. Time is the only thing that cannot be replaced. Everything else in a person’s life can be, even relationships, up to a point. Well, we could go all the way with that remark but here is what it amounts to: every day, when you have lived that day, it is gone and there will not be another one of that day. You move on to the next 24 hours of aging, of continuing –  or ceasing – doing what you are doing, how you are living within your environment, your relationships, yourself.

Some people say their prayers at night or wake up and count their blessings; perhaps, we ought, all of us, on sleeping or waking, do a similar sort of assessment on our state and condition; contemplate minor or major adjustments, reflect on what we can achieve – either on our own behalf or in favour of someone else.

There is only this one day, all on its own and, also, as a drop in the continual flow of our entire life.

That’s it. Just so many drops of time, called days. They are very limited too:  summer is over already, another three months zipped by. That child we saw – seems like only yesterday – is several inches taller and many thoughts older.

What is urgent about all this, obviously, is how we spend each of our precious days. In this writer’s opinion, none of it makes sense if none of it is spent on benefitting another person. To make others laugh, to offer a gesture of good will in giving a hand, a  treat, a compliment, an ear [to listen], all matter much more than what they cost.

Listen, I have feelings about kindness.

There was an interview on the CBC Radio 1 of a university professor, teaching a Happiness Course. Ah-

It must be true now, at last, because science has proven that doing good unto others, spontaneous acts of kindness, are good for our own happiness levels. That is her premise and the reason she can teach it at university. Now, people can be nice to each other,  because science says it helps us to be happy, making it all about ourselves again, although that wasn’t mentioned, as such.

Gratitude, too, contributes to happiness.

She gave her students happiness homework: recording their daily gratitude and the assigned five good deeds per week. The students reported feeling happier. Still, what’s the motivation?

Kindness needs to be a way of life; a matter of logic; not an assignment but a natural compulsion. Kindness should be quiet, not vaunted online with a little video. In other words, it never occurs to a person to miss helping another when placed to be able to do so.

Inevitably, we have take this on to the big picture, which is in turmoil. Kindness does belong online but doing its own work of infiltrating the Internet’s darkness with fingers of light, reaching out with true affection and invitations to come home.

Time to face fully, at the absolute base, what we care about: our home planet and its inhabiting species, including us, as a global state of emergency. What do we really understand about that except for the hundreds of thousands of people willing to risk everything to escape their beloved homes because of devastating wars and storms?

Eliminating such programs as there are to deal with climate change only increases the danger. Money won’t matter if we’re all dead.

Exactly what will it take for the 10 percent of people on this planet who actually run it to say: “Enough!” The voices of their own grandchildren, putting them on notice about future generations?

We all know: nothing needs to be invented to begin a serious revolution about how we feed and power this world, to use our powerful technology to save the place where we all live. Time to shut down the nay-sayers whoever they are with such a volume of proof overwhelming all the media that their denial is shown to be the terrifying folly it is.

We all must speak out, as well, noting how fast time and opportunities for rescue are fleeting.

Likewise: forget Mars, there isn’t time. Spend that mountain of money to save the Earth.

         

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