The sun sets on another day…
The world is a fantastic place, but I could not see sunset today as the skies were dark, and quite dismal. High above I knew the sunset was spectacular.
It is said that only the strong survive and from that we infer that you must be strong to overcome anything. There are many who think this is true and they express their strength consistently so that others know their invulnerability or at least their resistance to interference. Then there are those who don’t. Those people sit quietly and watch, not needing validation of their strength or a determination of their power.
I was brought up to be very competitive and that need for competition often meant a certain amount of bravado. When my children were young there were no wins for them unless they absolutely earned it, and looking back I have conflicting thoughts about how I approached this and how it was approached to me. Every time I won in life it was because I had achieved or overachieved a certain goal, and then there came a point where I realized I was in error and changed my ways.
It is here that I find an intersection between strength and empathy, and the realization that sometimes-true strength is having empathy. Knowing you can destroy someone utterly or win in a situation without effort doesn’t always mean you have to. Knowing you’re the smartest person in the room doesn’t mean you have to profess it. Being the best at a game, doesn’t mean you always have to win but instead means that you have to help someone learn and move forward. It is with that in mind that I suggest timid strength to be a solution. I will define that as a point where you push to where it is necessary and no further.
Why did I think about this? I was talking to a young man about the game mercy. Mercy is where you interlock your fingers with someone an attempt to get them to submit by pure power. When I was young, I used to play the game with several people who came in delivering to me and it was always quite over the top and quite brutal. Then one day instead of pushing myself to the limits and causing them to be overwhelmed, all I did was match their moves completely and held my own so that it was a consistent draw. To me that was as big of a win as anything else.
I saw this same thing on an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” where an android competed against a person and lost, but in a rematch later caused the game to end by only achieving a tie. The whole episode made me smile. After all, winning isn’t everything unless the other person thinks it is.
Anyway, as we walk through this thing called life, consider well the idea of timid strength if you are powerful. Consider being conscious of those around you, consider that if you are a monster that you should not act like one, and if you are better at something that instead of always asserting your prowess that perhaps you should lift others to your level.
So as the sun sets on another day, I hope you find yourself inside of all of the confusion that goes on around us. As you do, remember that helping people up is a whole lot better then putting people down. You have the ability to make the world a better place just by trying. Make a difference every day, no matter what.
Sleep sweet, love life, and who was that masked man…