Unconditional Positive Regard

"If your partner in life, child, friend or pet makes a bid for your attention, don't turn away. For this moment, they need your unconditional positive regard. This is more than one of the greatest gifts you can give; it is the key to making and keeping satisfying relationships."

Living Virtuously is Your Choice

"What is the core of your values and your attitude in this world? Fear, competition, and loyalty to your own or compassion, cooperation, and community responsibility? Your choice affects the quality of the future you create for your children... and for the children of every other family." David Satterlee

Essay: The politics of despair and optimism

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The politics of despair and optimism

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Read or download this essay as a PDF file at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4eNv8KtePyKajVCSVpSLU1JY1U/edit?usp=sharing

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

The politics of despair and optimism

Last week, I wrote contrasting the patriotism of fear and fighting with the patriotism of compassion and community. This leads us back to a reconsideration of the politics of despair vs. the politics of optimism. When living in troubled and difficult times, it is not wrong to acknowledge the true state of affairs – all the better to deal with it. But, there are unproductive and productive responses to hardship.

First a little whiplash: The railroads of England used to be a marvel. They tied the country together, ran to well-chosen destinations, and ran on time. You could depend on buying your ticket, catching your train, and getting where you were going. 

Goods, services, and citizens flowed easily. Then, in a time of temporary decline, the managers decided to maximize short-term profits. They invoked austerity measures. For a number of years, they repeated a cycle of discontinuing the least-profitable routes. They were somehow surprised when,

Poem: You Must Love Thy Neighbor

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You Must Love Thy Neighbor

Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Read or download this story as a PDF file at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4eNv8KtePyKZXlDQVhCaWRZZXc/edit?usp=sharing

A little ditty about empathy and compassion.

“You Must Love Thy Neighbor” 

(The saints among us)

All good things must run their course

And reach their final end.

So say the laws that govern us,

Which no one can amend.

We weep for sorrow not our own,

In love of fellow man.

And on these empathetic hearts

You can impose no ban.

For they can sense the tender need

Within a mind or heart.

And from compassion for such ones

These men will never part.