Although this man appears to be entirely solitary on his walk by the beach, he is accompanied not only by the unseen bugs, birds and other wildlife that are always present, but also by the people, living and dead, who are with him in his thoughts.
Who walks unseen with you today?
The values my parents modeled–compassion and consideration for others–are wired into my moral and ethical make up, though I continue to evolve applications for those values.
But here’s something not quite what you asked, but… For 26 years I worked in an extremely negative environment. Criticizing individuals and entire demographic groups, making fun of them, foul language became the norm when the dominant personality had what I now realize was a serious personality disorder and drew others into his negative behaviors.
He always needed a whipping boy to pick on. That person would tend to become stressed and depressed, and thus, perform more poorly at work, giving the persecutor justification to fire them. Or sometimes the person would quit. And sometimes the persecutor would shift to a different whipping boy for his own reasons.
It was my first job out of college, and I thought this behavior was typical of workplaces. I picked up some of the behaviors, such as criticizing and making fun, but I also was the whipping boy from time to time and picked up the stress, anxiety and depression. So in a negative sense, those coworkers walked with me. But they never took away the positive values I got from my parents, and you have inspired me to consider that that might be why I survived with my soul intact. I began to heal as soon as I left that workplace, but it has been a journey purging myself of all that, and I feel very grateful for how far I have come.
My friend Mella Mae, who really disliked her given name(!) but others never seemed to.
Years ago she and I found each other as teachers in a public library system in a small southeast Kansas town where she was a kindergarten teacher and I was the elementary art consultant. Mella soon adopted me as a friend, I could see, and I soon realized that she and I were soul sisters; she was one of the funniest, thoughtful, curious, jolly and loving person I ever knew and we retained that friendship over many years, even though we spent years apart later. I always went back to Winfield whenever I could, to see Mella, and our other friends. She was a very typical
Midwestern girl who came from a family of Kansas And Oklahoma settlers and typified what I consider “the salt of the earth”. Surprisingly, now politically, Kansas has become a conservative bastion but those earlier friends there were liberal minded and so open to the best things in our democracy. I miss Mella and our other friends very much.
So pleased that I can share your contributions to many of these Daily Com[pass comments,
Humn, can’t seem to get this previous comment directed to your post, Margaret!
I can see them both. Thanks.