I’ve worn glasses since I was nine years old.
Before that ninth year, the world was a pretty distorted and blurry
place. However, I just thought that was the way the world looked.
So, I struggled in school, at sports, and in my general life activities.
But after I got my first pair of glasses, those
corrective lenses changed everything. I now saw the world much more
clearly – including the chalk board at school, the baseballs I was trying to
hit and catch, and the far horizons of my surroundings. Indeed, life
dramatically changed for the better. And, that change, changed me.
My new clarity gave life a completely different quality
and feel. Things which had seemed so very threatening and frustrating to
me (like fast moving baseballs) suddenly became completely
nonthreatening and very doable.
Since those younger days, I have discovered, on a
whole new level, something about corrective lenses. It is this.
Indeed, life’s quality very much revolves around the “corrective life-lenses”
we employ to view life’s circumstances.
Obviously, life is what it is. And, like it or
not, its issues and circumstances are very often distorted and hard to make
out. And, so we employ psychological life-lenses to help us better navigate those challenges.
And, sometimes these really improve our ability to manage
life, and sometimes - not so much. It all depends on the underlying
prescription of those lenses.
For example, there are many self-serving folks out there,
most of whom seem to belong to the Marx family, who are trying to clarify
the means to a racially, economically, and politically divided America. So they wear, and advocate for all, the
life-lens of Hatefulness.
But, the rest of us, who have not yet gone clinically
insane, understand that this is a really bad prescription. Tragically, it has already been tried in many nations around the world - always
with consistently horrific results. All this lens of hatefulness ever
really does is bring life to a deep shade of blood red.
But there is another corrective life-lens which
creates a truly improved vision of life in America – and everywhere else for
that matter. And, this is its underlying prescription: A
very personalized willingness to embrace a deep sense of gentle responsibility for the
well-being and enduring joy of others.
This is the life-lens which, instead of magnifying societal
tensions, causes us to see through them, to discover and experience truly
durable solutions - together. This is the prescription of the
infinitely nobler life-lens of Brotherly Love.
And, it always begs this divine
question. Will you just love those who love you? If your answer is "yes," you've
put on the wrong glasses. You should immediately return them to the Marx
family.
