I have been reading a lot of commentaries on how America and its economy are the envy of the rest of the world, all while Americans wallow in misery and depression about the future. The disconnect is not logical from a big picture view, but I can imagine individuals thinking, "Yeah, things are OK now, but the bad times are on the horizon."
One reason humans have thrived as a species is our tendency to anticipate bad news. Relentless optimists often were eaten by the saber tooth tigers.
I also read a blog post today that made the argument that there is a significant difference between being empathic and being compassionate. The short version is that when we spend too much time experiencing the sad and depressing emotions of people, we ourselves can get depressed... and maybe just stop paying attention to the news, for instance.
Being compassionate is more about being there for someone and simply being open to sharing. It's funny how a definition can sharpen our thinking. I would guess many people think of empathy and compassion as synonyms. It helped me to see them as different (and maybe empathy is an emotional trap). After all, the world is (and always has been) awash in bad news, in tragedies, in barbaric acts and unscrupulous characters.
And then I was reminded of how a former principal of mine, Howard Vernon, came up with a slogan for City High in Iowa City back in the 1979-80 school year: "The School That Leads." I was hired on the next school year and inherited the slogan and had to take a crash course in what it meant and what its significance was.
The quick backstory is that City High went from being the only public high school in town to being a bit overshadowed by the then shiny and new West High... and that achievement and athletics and discipline took a dive in the 1970s. Vernon was a legendary Iowa prep football coach at Waterloo East HS and, it seemed clear to me, was hired on to lead City High out of the doldrums, or at least to instill some hard-nosed discipline among students and staff.
Proclaiming that you are "the school that leads" when the school quite clearly did not lead was ballsy. In retrospect, it was really "aspirational." Sort of like a mantra to buck up our spirits.
But here's the thing: within just a handful of years, City High really was the school that leads, and it maintained that cutting edge reputation for decades. It's not so much that West lost its appeal, but there was a palpable sense that the energy levels on both sides of the Iowa River were at least equal.
About five years ago, due to increasing population in northwest Iowa City and Coralville, Iowa City opened a third comprehensive high school -- Liberty, because it is in North Liberty, a nearby suburb -- and many of the students and staff for the new, state-of-the-art school would have attended West. So now Liberty seems to have much of the energy in the Iowa City metro area. It won't last forever, but what does?
The new year holds equal amounts of potential for good and bad, I would say, but as I sat eating lunch with my wife and our eldest grandchild, Grace, today, I thought the best approach for this young woman about to enter her second semester of college was to prefer the aspirational to the cynical. She is hungry to take on the future and ready for whatever may come. It's tough for grandparents to not get swept up in her enthusiasm.
For the sake of my grandchildren and my wife and kids... and my students in the coming semester, and my neighbors and the St. Luke's church community, I have decided to focus more on all the positives that 2024 may hold and minimize the time I spend on the culture wars and political nonsense.
Well, except for those 3 a.m. moments where I find myself lying awake and trying to remember the last time I slept through a night without needing to pee.
No comments:
Post a Comment