This week’s topic for reflection is hard choices. Choices are not always clear cut where it is easy to see the right thing to do and how to do it. Sometimes being helpful to one person causes harm to another person. So how do you approach this difficulty. One option is to do nothing. This might be the best option but often it isn’t. This topic assumes you’re in a position to do something. Do you have a responsibility to act? Are you willing to do harm for a greater good and then feel and accept the blowback from this?
Part of a physicians job is to occasionally give the patient and family bad news. This is important and how they do it can make a big difference on how it is received. Sometimes this information is rejected and fought against, even blaming the physician. It might be partly the physicians fault. If the physician truly cares, how should he/she deal with this?
A lot of life is not easy, obvious, joyful. It’s hard. There might not be a solution that makes everyone happy. So fundamentally, what’s most important to you? Where do you come from? Where do you want to come from? Who are you? Getting clear on this should make stepping forward with hard choices possible even when it’s painful. How does self-consciences get in the way?
Courage. Courage to see, hear and feel. Courage to care. Courage to act when you know you don’t have all the needed information. Courage to do something when you don’t know what will happen. Courage to follow through when it’s hard. Courage to act when you don’t have the ability to fix everything. Courage to ask for help. Courage and strength to be open and vulnerable. Courage to try. Courage.
How do you approach hard choices?
Please join us on Zoom for morning zazen from 7:00 to 7:30 Tuesday and Thursday, in person Zen meditation in Eugene Saturday morning at the McNail-Riley house from 8:30 to 11:00 and Sunday morning Zoom zazen and discussion from 8:00 to 9:00 Pacific Time.
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