November 23, 2017 - M&M's Musings

Hi Folks:

We are 8 years old today! Wow… Whodathunkit? Well, we did, one day and one post at a time. So far we’ve posted 549 blog posts (including this one) and 138 pages on a variety of subjects, and we’re just getting warmed up! Those 138 pages include 50 of our short stories (and how many have you read? 🙂 ) We’re certainly not alone in our celebrations, either. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first printed 152 years ago, this month!

How far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go?

In a world that often seems polarized, today we want to celebrate two words that are most often misunderstood: respect and competition.

We use respect as a stick, and wield it over others. Respect your elders, respect your boss, show some respect for ___…

Respect isn’t external, it’s internal. Re-spect: literally to look twice. To live with awareness of your ideas and your choices not because someone else told you that it was necessary but because, after giving it careful thought it makes sense to you. It’s about action, not re-action. Respect is the essence of life, to be true to one’s self.

Competition has an equally bad and equally undeserved reputation. We think of competition as some twisted version of Darwin’s theory – survival of the fittest (Darwin never actually said that by the way, but that’s another story).

We start instead with the Latin word competere: to strive together. One does not compete against anyone. To compete with someone is to seek the best in yourself AND to encourage the best in those around you.

FEAR can seem a powerful voice, but fear is just an acronym:

False
Expectations
Actualizing
Reality
(author unknown, but appreciated)

So, in closing out today’s post we want you to join us in celebrating kindness. Here are a few places to get you started: