Return To Honor

I recently saw a trailer for a new movie, “The Visitor.” I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m certainly going to because the tag line hooked me: You can live your whole life and never know who you are…until you’ve seen the world through others’ eyes.

The trailer went on to show a man bored with his life who, by chance, is exposed to the lives of people less fortunate than him. In a few short minutes, I was swept up into his new outlook as he began to reach out to others and use his professional skills and insights to make life a little better and more meaningful for them.

Have you looked at the world through others’ eyes? I have…and now I can hardly do anything but that. I was born into a fairly respectable family…a career Army officer and mother who raised us as morally as anyone in the Midwest, where we were all from. But he bailed out early in my life for reasons known only to his soul, and I was left to make crucial decisions way too early for that busy little mind of mine to handle. As a result, what should have been a pretty decent future became for a while a series of jail and prison cells.

I was forced to discover that life was very different for a whole lot of people outside of my protected military upbringing. Those people had lived through outrageous challenges that most people can only imagine through graphic portrayals of prison life in movies, books and television programs.

What I experienced, once I got over the initial fears and posturing that goes on between ethnic groups and different cultures, was a common human thread…men who were struggling with the same fears, angers and remorse…albeit often hidden…that I was.

Once I began to use my education and communication skills to help them better understand their behavior and how to change their attitudes and their outlook, I discovered a whole world of men who could overcome anything…and many who actually wanted to. They just didn’t know how…nor had anyone on the outside willing to help them make the lasting changes needed. More often than you might believe, I had hardened criminals with tattoos and scars all over their bodies in tears as they told me stories of their childhoods and how much they wanted to be respected and cared about by society.

Whether you’re dealing with prisoners or former prisoners, or people who are merely prisoners of their own minds and negative attitudes, the willingness on your part to see the world through their eyes can and will make the biggest difference in bringing about deep and lasting changes in the way we live our lives and build toward a more meaningful future. If you will pause from time to time and be willing to see the world through others’ eyes, your world will change for the better…guaranteed.

Don Kirchner

http://ReturnToHonor.org

Next to Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day (which isn’t really an “official” holiday, I know), Independence Day was always my favorite. It was Summer at its best…picnics, frolicking in grassy parks, barbeques and watermelon, and a sense of freedom about which I only had the tiniest inkling. What a great day it was to be alive, and full of hope and great expectations for a promising future. For a kid, life was always grand come July 4th.

But I suspect that for many people this Independence Day, life’s not at all so “grand.” Even among the more affluent whose formerly tidy estates have disintegrated into worthless real estate deeds, stock certificates  and dwindling bank accounts, things are beginning to look pretty grim right now. I have a number of once optimistic friends who are beginning to believe that empty store shelves, bread lines and soup kitchens might become a reality soon. I shake my head when I hear such talk, for I well know by this point that the more of us that think that way, the more it does become a reality.

To me, they’ve lost track of who they are, and how “independence” is created and maintained. It’s not about the things we have or don’t have. It’s about who we are, what sort of attitude we have, and how strong our friendships and family ties are. It’s also about our faith in ourselves, and how willing we are to brush off adversity and appearance of gloom and doom on the horizon, and shine our lights as brightly as possible. It’s about giving back to others in any way possible, and not complaining, commiserating or giving up. It’s caring about and respecting others, no matter who they are or what their age, gender or cultural backgrounds might be. That sets us all free, sooner or later.

The bleak and gloomy prospects on that horizon are merely dark clouds, and their impact on us will be directly proportional to the degree of collective belief we have in either dispersing them or drawing them to us…just as it was for our Forefathers and veterans of many wars who went through real gloomy times to make sure that we wouldn’t have to. So, I’m urging you to embrace a more positive outlook no matter what, to see if we can re-discover our true independence…again.

Happy Fourth to you…

Don Kirchner
ReturnToHonor.org