I used to read and love columns written by Henry Mitchell, a columnist with “The Washington Post” who passed on some years ago. He once wrote a column in which there was one sentence that, when all else fails, I go to: “I try not to be as nasty as I want to be.”
I love the Sermon on the Mount. I try to live by it, failing more often than succeeding, but…good news…never failing completely since I count it as success when I remember to try to turn the other cheek, to agree with my adversary quickly, to bless them that curse me, etc.
But the times when I just don’t even want to try…when my reasoning mind/ego just rears up and takes charge…I have learned to stop, just stop. I’ve lost that battle too many times to even try to fight it…to fight it by self-willing sweet, kind and generous thoughts and actions that I do not feel. They all just amount to self-determined objectives (with a self-righteous attitude seeping through), and there is no God there.
That’s when I remind myself to try not to be as nasty as I want to be. I think of it as a short form of the Golden Rule…and, for whatever reason, it fits my “innards” better.
Thank you.
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