A Sense of Accomplishment

Living out one’s life in the most productive and fulfilling ways possible is surely a goal worthy of our pursuit.  At the end of it all, having the sense that your life counted for something with others and for the world has to be a remarkable sense of accomplishment.

There are those, and right now we can name some of them, whose lives are rotten at the core.  The Penn State folly has delivered to our doorsteps the front page exposé of how bad it can be.   No matter what else may have been accomplished, these men who perpetrated a vast and mean game, did so at the terrible expense of others never feeling good about themselves.

Mean, demoralizing behavior is not a choice for responsible seniors.  It is an act of sheer and utter vileness.  It is a statement that life is ugly and I choose to make it uglier.  How sad!  How wasted the time and energy and abilities of persons who make such choices and decisions.

Be The Best You Can Be

The opposite tact is to cultivate goodness. The best among us look at ourselves everyday and ask “what can I do today to improve the world and be a better me?”   If we don’t ask, we may at least give it fleeting consideration.

If this world is to be any better it will be because conscientious people make “good” choices.  Every time we wander onto the dark side, we have made a conscious decision to be less than we can be.

It is not folly to work very intentionally and consequentially toward being a good and better person every day we have the chance.   It is of huge significance that we make the simple decision to be the best we can, offering the most noble of intentions and goals in our actions and behaviors and attitudes.

So what are the options?

Deliberately surrounding oneself with the good things of life, living, thinking and doing.

Eliminating negative influences that play on my emotions and thoughts.

Discarding anything in my life that is ugly and demeaning and belittling of others.

Finding ways to keep your spirit clean, pure, thoughtful of others and their need of a positive influence.

Deciding that whatever days are left to me will be invested in outcomes that favor serenity and kindness.

Treating others with honest respect and encouragement.

Finding ways to be polite and courteous, no matter the behavior of others.

Enabling others to see in me behaviors that they would like to emulate themselves.

Never resorting to pious and better-than-thou behavior in an attempt to imitate good behavior.

Finally, doing an inventory check regularly on my behaviors that allows me to keep on a steady road of being the best person I can be.

The result is the development of character and character is the epitome of the qualities of the good life.