Happy Holidays
This is once again a time to review the year that is ending and look forward to another year in prospect. Although I generally try not to look back, once a year I like to think about the past, especially about my resolutions, and grade myself on how well I did against my goals. This year was interesting in two respects important to me: One, I really tried hard to take better care of myself; as I've noted before, you can't help others unless you take care of yourself. Second, I was reminded that no matter how anxious we are to help, we must not make dependents.
I've discovered that, with age, I need to take better care of myself physically. It seems obvious now but in the relatively recent past I didn't understand it. Now I've formed a relationship with a skilled personal trainer and I have great hopes for the future. At the very least, I can slow the loss of strength and flexibility that seems to come inevitably with age. And the improved physical condition will lead to more optimism. Balance, flexibility and strength are all candidates for improvement and I'm working on all of them. And, as my trainer often urges, your mental facility also improves with exercise. I felt the best I ever felt in my life at age 50 and I'm hoping to say the same thing when I'm 70.
This year, my efforts to help emphasized the important point that the best help you can give is to help people help themselves. Sometimes, to do that, you have to let people do things themselves, make their own mistakes, suffer defeat. If we do everything for someone, we make them weak and dependent. Our goal should be to make them strong and independent. (By the way, if we don't succeed in doing that, we haven't really helped them. That's not to say that a helping hand is always inappropriate or that temporary dependence makes someone permanently weak. It's only to point out that dependence for more than a short time is not a help, it's a way to weaken another person.) It's hard for many people to avoid dependence but we have to push them to that goal.
I did a better job both in taking better care of myself and in helping others to take better care of themselves. Not perfect yet but better. So this year I'm awarding myself an A-, up from last year's B. Be strong yourself and help others to be strong. It's the only way to be useful to others in the long term.
Happy Holidays from your Internet Grandfather!
12-25-06
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