Love and Understanding

"How people keep correcting us when we are young! There's always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to get us through life."

-- Goethe

Three cheers for bad habits! For one person's bad habit is another's coping mechanism, and a third's great joy. Sometimes it is so much easier to judge others bad habits than it is to enjoy our own! The trick it seems is to know which habits to enjoy and which to jettison. The opinions of others are not usually a good criteria on which to base these decisions.

As every seer worth his salt, from Buddha to Scott Peck, has pointed out, "life is hard." If a bad habit or two ( a nip before noon, a fondness for sweets -- confectionary or female) gets you through, who am I to judge? Who am I to say your life would be better without the so-called bad habits?

We legislate only for ourselves. In fact we are each all three branches of government for our own small republic of one. We legislate our own standards of behavior, we carry out those standards in the world, and we judge our own performance against those standards. The thing is, those standards don't apply to anyone else, or even in the republic next door.

And so, just for today, if you're old, quit telling young people what not to do. If you're young, don't take the old farts too seriously, or judge them too harshly. Their own bad habit may be telling young people what not to do! And for all of us -- young, old and in-between -- let's lighten up, relax and enjoy this roller coaster called Life.