Do Unto Others

When you're going through a personal crisis, it is easy to get so absorbed in your own pain and needs that nothing matters except managing your own "stuff."  That is normal.  It is even healthy.  Putting our energies into managing our own issues is a sign of maturity.

There should come a time, however, when healing has progressed to a place where you can not only recognize the crises others are facing but also lend a helping hand.

My opportunity to do that came a week before Christmas when a farmer I know called me and said, "We're going to lose our farm to a railroad!"

For the preceding year, the only "cause" I had the emotional, physical, and spiritual energy for was getting my kids and myself through our divorce and its fallout.  And it took all I had.  Some days it still does.

But when I heard those words over my phone, I felt a flame rise up within me.  This was a battle I had to help win in whatever small way I could.

Why this one?

It could be the fact that I have lived my life in the shadow of a farm taken by eminent domain "for the public good."  It could be because my first paying writing job was covering a farmer who also lost his farm by eminent domain so it could become a parking lot for his neighbor's significantly larger business.

It could be because I know at least two other farmers in Rhode Island who have either lost land through eminent domain or through unethical government business practices.

It could be I have finally had enough.

It could be the time was just right.

I don't know.  But in the past weeks I have written letters, posted articles, called government leaders, and spoken on radio calling for our state to prevent this railroad from going through.  I have read good portions of the NEC Tier 1 EIS and discovered that I no longer oppose this project just for my friends' sake . . .  I oppose it because it's just a plain old bad idea for our state.

Through this process, however, something else happened.  I found myself re-energized.  I rediscovered a clarity of thought and purpose that has been elusive in recent months.  I saw the sun shining through the clouds, promising that better things were on the way.

I remembered how good it felt to do something for someone else for no other reason than it's the right thing to do. 

Look for your own opportunity to "Do Unto Others" . . . it's good for you!

(By the way, you can find out more about the railroad plan on my LinkedIn and Facebook pages or by visiting the Charlestown Citizens' Alliance webpage!)