It's Time to Strap One On

I said not to long ago that we shouldn't be dismissive, that we shouldn't ignore what's going on in other people's lives..(what was that line that Glen Close, as the uber-permed, whacked out psycho said in Fatal Attraction, "I WON'T BE IGNORED"). So, o.k., she took it to the extreme.
So, I have seriously been trying to step outside of my own presence, just a bit, and am trying to be aware of what's going on with others; not in a humane, like I'm all that, bullshit kind of way, just more dipping my toe into the ethos and pathos of others realities.
And, I'm sorry but people, people, people, it is time to grow a pair, because what I've seen for the most part has been a lot of bitching, and whining, and malingering, and me, me, me-isms.
And amongst all this caterwauling, I look and listen to a good friend who is writing about her experience with a very personal, wrenching, life-altering experience that she and her family are dealing with, no not dealing, they are mastering with daily ritualized hope and fear and fight and stamina, and, oh yes, with a couple of good old fashion, fuck you's in there.
Or I watch kids on Thanksgiving Day who are fighting for their lives against cancer, who I am blessed and honored to even share the day and this meal of Thankfulness with, and they're all about seeing who can eat the most shrimp cocktail, those who have an appetite, or who can decorate the most gorgeous, inedible cookie you can imagine. It's all 'out there', nothing is hidden or cloaked in self-denial or self-pity. They're just kids, who are with their families, making waste of an excellent brunch line, and having a blast.
And then you have the other side of the coin.
When we let vanity take control. Or, even worse, hubris. When we think that we have all the answers and don't care to look outside our own personal experience, because, donchyaknow, we already have all the answers.
And usually the answer is derived from many of us just talking to ourselves. Blah! Blah! Blah! Just really white noise in our heads, but how self-important and know it all we can be.
It's bad enough when you control others to say what you need to hear to affirm your own reality, but when you start talking to yourself, with full conviction that what you're hearing yourself say is the truth, 100%, no exceptions, then that is the highest, really, lowest form of Hubris.
Until you've walked in the shoes of that sick kid, or a family dealing with a life-threatening situation, or at least kept yourself open to the maelstrom that surrounds those 'others' who are engaged in daily struggles of survival, you don't, you shouldn't, sweat the small stuff.
Bad hair days pale in comparison to 'no hair days'. The Freshman 20, or middle age pooch can't stand up to not eating for weeks on end because you're too sick. To thread or pluck? Doesn't make much difference when there's nothing to thread or pluck? And wasting one's breath to gossip and snipe or tear down? Please! Not when, just putting one foot in front of the other, is a mini-triumph.
So, I say, crack open that door of observation, of recognition of others trials and tribulations and by doing that minimalize and trivialize our own seemingly important frets and furies. It's probably not all that bad. Or as you've heard a million times before, someone always has it worse.
Strap one on. It's time.