Making Changes.

Most of us say there are things about ourselves we would change if we could. Well since we control only two things in our lives, our own thoughts and actions, then maybe that would be a good place to start.

To many of us grew up with bigotry, prejudices and hatred for certain other people, places and religions. I grew up in Japan since my father was a career Air Force man. As such I lead a very sheltered life. We lived on military bases and had only one TV channel that played programs in English. I went to a lot of movies since they were very inexpensive on the base and there wasn't much for a kid to do. This was in the 50s and early 60s and there were not the sports programs for children that we have now. We went out side to play, that and school was pretty much our life.

So because of my unique upbringing I missed a lot of the prejudices that were going around during that period in our countries growth. But when I returned to Kentucky, my birth place, in the mid 60s I was suddenly exposed to all the hatred and mistrust of others that I had been missing. Wow what a shock to the system. I was now supposed to look down on black kids as poor trash and not play with them, and Japanese, (Japs), we not to be trusted. Well I never did buy into that but I learned to keep my mouth shut since I would get put in my place if I questioned the local bigotry.

Over the last 45 years since then, our attidudes have changed somewhat and we have gone through different people to hate, the Commies, the Chinks, the Gooks and now the Arabs and the Gays. It never ends, seems like we have to have someone to hate to justify us being better. I think that was what Hitler used to get into power, "it's all the Jews fault".

Well if we only control our on thoughts and actions, why can't we change them? Why can't we wipe the slate clean and start over, looking at things properly. Judging people as individuals and human beings just like us. Yes there are some real bad, even evil people in every color, and every size and shape. But there are some damn fine ones in every color, size and shape also. So why not make this the day that we stop looking at people as groups and start looking at them as people.

We can change our thoughts, and we can change our own personalities if we really want to. We can teach ourselves to be more patient, more understanding and more caring. We can teach ourselves to be more helpful and more caring. We can start training to be the person that we want to be. We don't need a life changing event like a heart attack to remind us that we are only here for a short time, we can make a decision to make our selves better and be more the person we want to be.

We can change our level of fitness, we can eat better and we can be the poster children for good health, but if the inside needs a good cleansing that should be a priority also.

Thanks for reading.