Ya don't have to look far....

Whether we need it or not, everything is closer to us than we think. While this holds true for things like happiness and things positive, it is also for things decidedly not. Eternal balance, the Yin and Yang, are omnipresent...so it is with great caution and high awareness that we make the choice of what we look at and focus on. Sticking your head in the sand to ignore any part of that balance will not be in anyone's best interest, as would obsessing about, say, something negative, as that draws it closer and closer to reality with such focused attention. We create our own realities, whether we're aware of it or not...and the basis lies within that powerful freedom of choice as to how we act and react to 'things'.

I say all that because of the recent tragic death of a 15 year-old freshman in Massachussetts I read about yesterday. Cute girl, whose family just moved here from Ireland....and tormented this school year by a group of 9 students in particular (male and female) with merciless bullying and taunting, including rape...and supposedly most of that occurring at school and on-line.

She killed herself.

Senseless death is just that, senseless. Where did these kids get the idea it was okay to behave this way? Where were the school administrators? Where were all the parents? Who heard the incessant cries for help and did nothing? Who is so out of touch with their kids they have no idea they're acting like criminals and misusing the internet? Have you ever been in a situation where someone is doing something so badly that you needed to stand up and speak out...and did you?

My years at Woodberry Forest School taught me many things, including some very hard lessons. Serving on both disciplinary and honor committees, I had to make tough choices on someone's potentially life-changing actions, whether they were disciplined or expelled...and that meant that in my daily life as a student, if I saw illegal or rule-breaking behavior, I was obligated to report it.

Many here call that snitching. I call it doing the right thing. Many calling it ratting on your friends. I call those people cowards not interested in the greater good of our society. Somewhere along the line we've lost our backbone for standing tall and speaking out honorably, and replaced it with either an 'amoebic silence' or some trumped-up chest-beating bravado seen in the political arena with bad-boy and bad-girl behavior. And I'm not talking just the 'out-shouting' politicians, but citizens that exhibit boorish behavior that's basically laced with bigotry and racism. And don't get me started on the ultra-right wing Christian Conservative militia groups that are on a 'godly' mission to cause death and destruction and somehow label it as 'good and right'. Those FBI raids shed light on just how close to us true terrorism is in our country.

In the 7th grade I crossed the 6' and 200-pound mark. Safe to say I wasn't bullied, and in fact stepped in to protect those that were. I've never tolerated mean people, and won't. I don't tolerate rude behavior, bigots, racists and those that mistreat animals. At a time when our nation desperately needs to pull together, there is that powerful 'opposite' force of those pushing their selfish 'My Way or the Highway' attitude. Where are all the people that can think ahead of the curve and see our Oneness instead of our perceived Separateness?

Yet, somehow in all that 'darkness' are buried blessings and beacons of 'lightness' that hopefully translate into personal growth and awareness...the proverbial passing of the spark to get a fire going (and might I add the kind of fire that warms and casts a golden glow, not the kind that destroys).

Life gives you a big DingleSnorf. It's what it is, a DingleSnorf...but how you look at it, how you perceive it, and how you react/deal with is where important Life-forming growth can occur...or not. Choose who you want to be in any given moment and BE that person. Wanna have a pity party and trust no one? Your call. Wanna look for the nuggets of gold in the hearts of others, in the eyes of a stranger, and in the infinite beauty of a flower? It's a simple choice.

But you make it, and define yourself in the process.