ACCEPTANCE IS THE KEY

[Lieutenant Frederick Georges]

 

People,

 

I know that many of us who choose to be Firefighters, EMT's and Policemen are subjected to the trauma of going to the aid of those of us in need of help.

 

I feel we all need to be thankful that the calls we respond to do not involve our personal friends and loved ones, but do remember that these people are all still our family as we all share the world together. I feel we are all connected spiritually and so must be mindful that what we do to others we do to ourselves.

 

Lately I have been observing at an alarming rate a trend to be very negative in our actions and words. Stress has overcome so many people everywhere I go both here and abroad. I was once told that everything we say and do has an impact to some degree either minuscule or monumental on all of the rest of us in a positive or negative way. This has been referred to when what we say is negative as "violence of the tongue". It has been said that words hit harder than fists.

 

I, like all of you, have suffered personal pain. I feel I have been very fortunate to have had the support and guidance of a teacher who was kind enough to give me this information : "Bad things and good things in this life are unavoidable for the most part and not under our control completely, so we must understand you can not have one without the other".

 

One of the keys to a happier life I have discovered is acceptance . How I choose to react to life events I find is something I can control. If I choose to be negative and angry when life hurts me then I have, in addition to the painful event, yet another problem to burden me. But if I choose to react differently, then I will have one less brick to carry in my bag of life experiences and I can go on with my life, being mindful to learn from my experiences and avoid repeating the events that caused me pain.

 

I now say with a happy heart when things go badly.." that was the worst thing to happen since the last bad thing" and I choose to react in a way that is less upsetting to me and others around me.

Negativity can be controlled. I have recently been blessed to hear these words from a true friend... " BE KINDER THAN NECESSARY, FOR EVERYONE YOU MEET IS FIGHTING SOME KIND OF BATTLE".........   ( Doctor Elizabeth T. Georges)

 

We are all blessed and cursed with the greatest friend and worst enemy known to humankind.. our own minds.  We are given all the keys in life to be both happy and horrified. I have read that every person is given at birth the "key to heaven". But the same key will open the "gates of hell".

 

Acceptance is the key to manage pain in all of it's forms,.. anger, frustration, depression, envy, hate and greed. I feel we all must understand that we each have gifts to share and that is why we must get past negativity and accept each other without being aloof or condescending when we witness our fellow humans behaving badly. So many good people have surrendered their loving hearts and better judgment to pain.

 

We as a species have been given many unbelievable gifts. The gift of language so we all have the opportunity to learn from each other's failures and triumphs. And the gift that sets us apart from all other life forms on our earthly host which has afforded us the opportunity to perform tasks that are truly miraculous.. opposable thumbs!

 

Shamefully too often these gifts are wasted on telling lies and making devices to kill each other.

 

We are all doing "the best we can".

 

Be well and safe everyone.

 

Respectfully,

 

Lieutenant Frederick Georges

Orleans Nebraska Fire and Rescue - Retired

 

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[Lieutenant Frederick Georges]

No matter what life presents to us we should always "accept the things we can not change... change the things we can... and be wise enough to know the difference"