From the time we are born and, I’m beginning to learn, for many years after we get direction in our life.

As a baby, we get carried around and put places where a big person decides we need to be.

As we grow, we have big people telling us what to do, where to go, when to stop putting mud in our mouths.

If we have brothers or sisters or dogs, they always think they are higher up on the food chain.

Then we start school and a big person tells us where to sit, when to line up, whether or not we can go to the bathroom, when to stop pulling a girl’s hair. As WE get bigger, they use different weapons like grades or recommendations or their “perspective.”

Eventually we have a boss who tells us when we are to work, how to work, and why we can’t take a sick day to go see baseball games.

Many of us find a partner and they proffer us all kinds of crazy stuff, especially related to the position of the toilet seat.

I’m naturally allergic to direction. There was a time in my life that if you told me to go north, I guarantee I would have gone south. But we learn to play the game. We learn that others know things we don’t know. We absorb and mature and grow. These people in our lives are mostly, in the end, working for our good.

I think what bothers me most about our current social climate are the absolutes. What to believe, how to demonstrate our conviction, who we should affiliate with, and when something is or is not appropriate. It’s given as fundamental truths without regard and without compassion.

How about we pump the brakes and listen and be kind and work for the good of others for a while?