“Well, you did your good deed for the day…” I’m sure I have said this. To others, to myself. And I probably thought, well, that it was a good thing to say. I was listening to a podcast the other morning, and they were talking about compassion, about the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule or law of reciprocity is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself. It is a maxim of altruism seen in many human religions and human cultures. The funny thing is, it doesn’t say, treat others as you would like to be treated, once a day. To live a compassionate life, to be compassionate toward yourself, and toward others (and I think both have to take place); I guess we have to do that all the time. All the time. Be good all the time. That sounds a bit terrifying actually. I already feel nervous about failure. But if I think about it, and admit to myself that of course I’m going to fail, of course we all will fail, no one is perfect, then maybe it’s not so terrifying. Here’s the thing, I could fail even if I was trying once a day – or once a week, or going even on my good deed once a year, I still could fail… so if I’m trying to be good, be golden, be compassionate, to treat others as I want to be treated all the time, I’m going to succeed sometimes. A lot more times. Maybe even a lot more times than I fail. And if we are all doing that, we are all going to succeed a lot more. And that’s a good thing – maybe even golden! They say living a compassionate life involves, kindness, and understanding, empathy, and here’s one you might not have thought of, curiousity. Yes, we need to be curious about our own life, about the lives of others. So I will try to be kind. And yes, I’m curious, so very curious to see how this all works out. I’m curious how others can think so differently from me. I’m curious to see how I can be so different from them. How we can create and survive and question and wonder, and stumble, and fall, and fail, fail so badly, and still survive? I’m so curious about how we do that. Because I’ve seen us do that. You and me. We have survived and thrived and failed and succeeded and cried and laughed and laughed and laughed. Isn’t that curious? Isn’t that wonderful? Makes me want more. I want more kindness. More compassion. I want us all to be golden. Not just once a day. I am curious and I am hopeful. I have to be. We all have to be. I can’t bear that we could be people who hate each other. Turn on each other. We are not alone. We are not together once a day, or when we feel like it. We are in this together. All the time. We are one race. The human race. Period. Period. There is no “other.” So look around. Is this the way we want to be treated? Is this polished? Can we be golden? I hope so. I know I am flawed. So flawed. Forgive me for that. (And I will forgive you, because that’s the deal, isn’t it?) So tonight we try. We’re in this together, all the time. And we try again tomorrow. And we celebrate our successes. Oh, how I want to celebrate with you. So today, tonight, and tomorrow then. And the one after that too. Golden.