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ANXIETY OR SERENITY
By lindamuralidharan on 2010-06-04 20:26:34
As I follow the news, focused heavily one minute on the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe and another minute on the Gaza
blockade and the loss of life that occurred among passengers on the flotilla, I wonder how I or any other citizen far from
these events can improve matters. What is our responsibility? Yea..I say unto you...there is a word for concern. It can
trigger instant anxiety for some of us. Some of us have an over-developed sense of responsibility or conscience and think
we have to help everybody. Some of us simply had it unrealistically and judgmentally drummed into our heads by childhood
care givers, religious teachers, and educators. In this group are many who have rebelled. Many who live very self-
centered lives. Many who basically take the attitude that..well I won't use the common street language that amounts to
something like this: I don't care what you say and I could care less if you go jump in the lake. These folks register the
burden of responsibility as too great so they decide it is useless to try. They register conscious or unconscious anxiety,
resentment, hostility at the mention of the word. In the years when I worked my own internal "jihad" to rid myself of
patterns of dysfunctional behaving and in the years when I worked with clients to help them manage mental health
symptoms or stay free of substance abuse and its dysfunctional life styles, I learned and taught and practiced a view of
"responsibility" that is liberating and productive of a lot of peace of mind. I learned and then taught that the word comes
from two other ones, two words without a lot of emotional or guilt producing baggage. The word really means: the ability
to respond. The ability to respond in the here and now to any given situation. And since we all have different abilities,
what we can do in any given situation differs from time to time and person to person. There is no one answer, no one
standard of perfection to live up to, no required choice except in rare emergencies. There is a great sense of relief and the
opening up of a whole new world when one realizes that all that is asked of one is to do one's best in any given situation
according to how one sees the situation and according to what one's own resources are. Here are some thoughts about how a
person can "respond" when we have so many issues before us that affect the quality of life in the world for so many people
and we all have some kind of limited abilities. We can learn as much as possible about any situation before jumping to
conclusions. This may include articles, books, the history of a problem and its environs, reaching out to individuals who
have experienced something similar or who are living through the conditions of concern. For example, here is just one tiny,
tiny glimpse of what living, breathing humans endure inside Gaza:
http://news. yahoo.com/s/time/20100604/wl_time/08599199429500 After listening to or reading about the wet lands in the
Gulf or some of the fisherman whose lives are affected, one may be intrigued to pursue a topic in more depth. One may
want to learn about the interplay of politics and the lucrative oil industry in Louisiana. One may want to read more about
the regulators at state and local levels (coal industry, oil industry, nuclear industry) and see how these interactions affect
outcomes of safety or economics or jobs or loss of lives. Unless our minds are very, very closed to new ideas or seeing a
given matter from someone else's point of view, we can all start the process of becoming aware of the background facts and
the human impacts of many issues. We can all study both sides of any issue. Next, a person might feel the need to email or
phone a public official about a policy or issue. One might draw up a priority list of issues to address...since there are so
many and it is hard to keep track of all of them. Other options include engaging others in an open dialogue about an issue
and sharing any new information you have gleaned, joining a group that is studying the issue, joining a group that is
lobbying on the issue, donating whatever you can afford to an effort to make things better, writing letters to the editor, and
asking your children or grandchildren what they think about the issue. At any level of ability, each of us can respond by
starting to "care", by being curious. It is characteristic of human nature that some are locked in a mindset that resists
change, that wants to stereotype others who are in some way different from them, that wants to target scapegoats rather than
look deeper into a complex situation. And at every stage of history there are some who have looked beyond the surface of
situations and been open to looking at the larger picture, at ways to expland possibilities and to work for, and sometimes
sacrifice for....hope. And at any point in history there have been those who somehow managed to change from the "closed"
to the "open" minded camps. We are all interrelated as humans and we are all asked in this life to respond...in some small or
large ways...according to our very human frailties..and we all deserve the chance for serenity, for peace of mind.
"Responsibility" is a good word. It brings us together in respect for self and others.
