Shortly after we ushered in the New Year, I had a close brush with the grim reaper. While I survived the encounter, I found myself focused completely on recovering. It was a pretty long and steep climb, but I have an RN wife and an RN daughter that kept me alive and have helped me get back to the point where I'm just waiting for the paperwork exercise in OKC. Along the way, APC was an easy distraction to give up. I actually thought about reading and posting at one point early on, but when I logged in to get "caught up," one of the first threads I opened was one titled "Karma" and authored by an infamous disrupter whose name I don't even want to say. In fact, I'm going to edit their name out of the post quotes below -- if you're really interested in knowing the author, you can click on the blue arrow ( ) beside the name and the link will take you directly to the original post. Ironically, the post was made, and the thread started, the same day I was discharged from the hospital. I was so disgusted by the post, and the attitude of the poster, that I decided my time would be much more better served by doing other things -- ANY other things.



So, what is it they say about delighting in the misfortune of others? I hope you'll forgive me for referencing the Good Book, but I think it has some mighty powerful good tips for life. One of the them is from David, in his Proverb 17:5: "Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished." In another Proverb (24:17), he says, "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles." I notice that the advice is not about your brother or your friend falling, it's about your enemy falling. It might be easy to justify celebrating your enemy's demise while empathizing with your brother's misfortune, but David says don't even rejoice when your enemy falls.

So why is it that we have some among us (albeit few) who would celebrate the misfortune of his brother or sister? Is that how we foster unity? Is that how we build trust in each other? Is that how we want to be seen by our opponent? Shall we save our opponent the trouble of inflicting harm on us by inflicting harm on ourselves?


We've got a large group of people with a myriad of different priorities and opinions. We come from many different walks of life and have endured and grown through various trials and challenges. We can use those differences as points of division, or we can capitalize on them to create our strengths. Which do we want to do?

So, the guy made choices about his schedule that wound up biting him in the checkbook. Maybe it was a bad gamble, or maybe it was a good gamble with a bad outcome. Either way, it was a bad outcome, So, should we kick him when he's down and laugh at him, or offer a helping hand and find a way to turn it into a valuable life lesson? I think we know which is better. I think we can all do better, and I think most of us DO better most of the time. Some of us might have even checked in with him to make sure he was getting the care he needed to recover from COVID, and most of us would hope for a speedy and complete recovery.

So, anyway. I think the poster's choice of thread title -- "Karma" -- was a bit more than ironic, as it will surely accrue to him for celebrating his brother's suffering. It helped me reclaim a lot of time by convincing me to step away from APC for a spell. As I ease back in to the conversations now I hope to keep the perspective of helping each other, especially when somebody's down. That doesn't mean I intend to hold back on criticism where criticism is warranted, but I see no good to be had in personal assassination. One can call balls and strikes without calling others nasty names.

For what it's worth.

In Solidarity






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Sorry to hear about your close encounter Tony. Take good care of yourself and get well soon.

 

Glad you are ok and I hope the paperwork goes smoothly.

 

Oh wow, Tony. I'm sorry to hear about your health issues but glad you're recovered. Good luck with the process and continued good health!

People, especially when posting anonymously, are jackasses. Great post! Karma is indeed a biatch.

 

Welcome back, Tony. Glad you’re doing better and hope your paperwork shuffle resolves quickly and favorably!


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Hope you feel better. Health scares are always stressful and scary experiences.

 

Glad to hear you are well.

 

There is no karma. Bad things happen to good people. And good things happen to bad people. It is what it is. No point even thinking about it. Life isn’t fair. It’s what you do when sit hits the shan that counts. And if you believe in Him, then you know He is the only one who can call balls and strikes. Hopefully we don’t strikeout.

 

This is a tip from our friend in Bainbridge Island (remember that ferry ride over? so much fun!):

"Quit drinking the vanilla extract!"

Good to hear you are back among us. You would have been to and from ANC several times already before our Fall road trip to MEM.