September 20, 2005 at 11:32:49 p.m.
A wise man once wrote “The whole world is a hospital and you’re either a patient or a nurse.”
Perhaps at no time in the last two generations is this comment more appropriate.
When we think that the world around us has gone crazy perhaps it’s time to look at who you are. Are you the patient or the nurse?
Take yourself off to a public place. A local mall might be a good choice. Sit down on one of those very hard benches they supply for tired shopper and take a long, hard look at the people passing by. Which ones are the patients and which ones are the nurses? It’s really not that hard to identify one or the other. And, after you have made a few choices, look again. What are the characteristics that you see in each one. Are the patients limping, their faces frozen in some mask of hopelessness? And the nurses. They are looking around, for someone to take care of, someone who will give them applause for their good and compassionate services?
Is this too stringent a commentary? I think not, because self honesty is in demand right now. A new beginning, a new century. What better time to take stock and look at one’s self with unblinking vision.
Spiritual development demands honesty and a willingness to update ourselves without hesitation when the time indicates that we do so. Is there any better time of demand than now? Perhaps someone is looking at you and they see you as either the patient or the nurse. It will be hard to hide either one. Hard, that is, unless you remove yourself from both images. Being who you really are is the only way you can change other people’s perception of you. If you think it doesn’t matter you’re fooling yourself. If you think that the image in the mirror is neither patient or nurse, you’re also probably kidding yourself.
This is the first month of the year. Letting another month go by without an honest appraisel pretty much sets the tone for the year. Probably, in one manner or another, you lifted a glass on this past new year’s eve and toasted the new year and there is a good chance you will do so next December 31st. Will that be a toast the new, real you that emerged from the hospital of life, or will there still be a medical progress report swinging aimlessly from the foot of your bed.
Decide! – GT