Published 12/30/08

 

Lumps and bumps prove we are alive;
they’re not who we are

 

For most of the past 30 years I’ve worked in power generation plants. I still have, and use, the same hard hat I was issued at the start of my first civilian job 23 years ago.

 

The hat no longer has the shiny, fresh glow it had upon its issue to me, having lost that surface to time and grime.

 

There are also many scrapes, gouges, nicks, and various-colored paint scuffs indicating that over all that time the hat has done its job.

 

If the hat could talk, I’m sure it wouldn’t utter a single complaint about the injuries it has sustained while protecting its owner’s ponkin’ haid. After all, was this not precisely the purpose for which it was created?

 

As we have come through life, have we not each sustained numerous injuries, both at the hands of others as well as our own?

 

To be sure, some of us have suffered more severe injuries than others, but it seems to me that that is simply due to fate — what happens to one could just as easily have happened to someone else.

 

Understanding this, what sense does it make for any of us to complain about our life’s injuries, or point to them as excuses for not being better than we are? Are we not being irresponsible toward those around us when we allow ourselves to be diverted from our paths by injuries that happen to everyone else as well? Do we not each have a responsibility to be the very best we can be?

 

“Whatever the world may say or do, my part is to keep myself good; just as a gold piece, or an emerald, or a purple robe insists perpetually, ‘Whatever the world may say or do, my part is to remain an emerald and keep my colour true.’” — Marcus Aurelius