When I started this blog, I started it for a reason where I idealistically thought I could have an effect on something going on in my community that I did not agree with. During my journey of writing, I felt myself growing angrier and angrier over the situation and pretty soon I was writing in a way which does not reflect me, who I am, and I even managed to get my wife involved. Has the situation improved? I don't know.
During the past few weeks, I have been reading some of the items I wrote and to tell you the truth I'm ashamed of my tone and the way I approached the whole situation, and I'm openly apologizing for my behavior over some of the past posts I've done.
My reflection was brought on after a visit by Tom Ford, the interim manager who came over to look at some damage a project had done to my sidewalk. Tom made me realize he, unlike me, stepped forward and helped when the village needed the help. Tom is a good guy and reminded me that perhaps my version of what might be going on in the community might be a bit different as he explained his thinking to me, and it helped to change my mind a bit. I had a person in my yard who was being kind to me, and it really just shook me down to my core of my soul and I started really taking a look at some of the things I've been doing.
Another reason why I started this reflection is that due to a new policy with my insurance, they've cut back on my meds I need by 1/2. I need two shots of a drug to feel "normal" each costing about $4,000 EACH - and they only want to pay for one of these shots. So, for the past 12 weeks, I've been out of bed for perhaps 3 of the weeks. I have metastatic Carcinoid Cancer, it is incurable, but the drug can control the symptoms - but I am on half of what I need. I am going to die from this disease. Every day I wake up, I thank God for letting me have another day on the earth before I move on to the next realm. This situation has made me to come face to face again with mortality, and I started thinking and wondering about the amount of time I actually have left on this world. Truly, no one knows, but when you've been given you diagnosis and the average survivor lives for 5 years (and I'm on 10 years now) you start imagining a lot of things you never thought about before. I know, someone could step in front of a bus or have a car wreck, but when you start seeing yourself feeling worse and worse everyday - this is a burden weighing heavily on you both mentally and physically. 90% of Cancer Survival is the attitude you have, and while I still have a fighting attitude, I've been partially stripped of some of the tools I need to fight and survive the disease. (So, most of my time lately has been spent fighting against this, and I have won a partial victory.)
You start wondering about where you came from and where you are going to, my faith answers these questions for me, but it also makes you start to wonder about what you've left as a legacy for your descendants and children to remember you by.
I want to be remembered as a kind man, a good dad, a person who would help his neighbor when the help needed to be there. I don't want to be remembered as a controversial blogger, I want to be remembered with a kind thought and not one of anger or hate. In his Seven Habits book, Steven Covey describes how you should reflect about dying and trying to imagine your funeral, and to try to imagine what people would say about you at this funeral. I have done this a few times in my life, and it has helped me a lot - and it helped me again now in this situation because I decided to do something important.
So, what I decided to do was to change gears, and I basically removed and deleted all of the posts on this which dealt with Stockbridge politics. Nothing is ever perfect, and continuing to write in the way I was writing just really goes against the person who I hope I am, and if I'm not that person - I hope I can become that person. I truly hope in my heart that the council which is in charge now does the things to make this a better community, whatever those things are, and I'm just going to try to support this as much as I can.
At this point, all I just really hope for is that the people who are running the village do a good job and at the end of their terms they learned as much as I did during my term. As I reflected, and this happens a lot, the thing I started running into was something we have to guide us in our Church called our Articles of Faith. These were written in response to a newspaper person who contacted our founder, Joseph Smith, and asked him what we believed.
The final article of faith reads:
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
So, this is what I'm going to try to live up to. I think it is quite a tall order, but to tell you the truth there are so many things that are lots of things that are virtuous, lovely or of good report out there - and rather than writing about the ugly side of things, I'm going to try to write about the good side of things.
So, that is my commitment. Part because a kind person showed up at my door and treated me with kindness and dignity, part because I've done some introspection, but mostly because I'd like to leave a better legacy than the road I was going down. During the past weekend, we had a lesson in Church which started talking about how you represent your organization, and to tell you the truth, I don't think I've been a very good representative. I hope in the coming months as I change gears and write about things as described above, you agree with me.
