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Saturday, April 10, 1999
Walked - 4 miles 5:45 PM - I'm waiting for my daughter and her boyfriend who are driving in from the Phoenix airport. They got there about 2:30 PM but called that the rental car lines were incredibly long amd it would probably take them at least an hour, if not more, before they could even get their rental car. I am so excited. This is the first time my daughter has visited me. It's kind of a watershed in that she's not coming home, but to visit. 7:15 PM - They're here, they're here. So great to see them. Well, actually they've been here and then took off to find a motel as they're rather tired. We don't go on daylight savings time so we are now on Pacific time and they are still running on Eastern time. Joel is a New Yorker so all of this is new and Lisa is so excited about showing him everything. So much fun seeing everything with someone new.
Looking at yesterday's entry there might be an impression that I think that all you have to do is chose right and everything will be all right. That isn't what I meant. You can't chose what happens to you, only what you do about it. You aren't responsible for many things that happen to you but you do have to take the responsibility of handling it. I don't think you "cause" bad things to happen to you because you "aren't good enough" or you don't "think the right thoughts" or "it's your karma". All that's a bunch of garbage. You can chose forms of behavior that cause certain things to happen to you, but usually it's nothing that you've done. You aren't responsible for natural disasters, idiot politicians, your boss waking up in a bad mood, some idiot running a red light, etc. There are also things that you can, in a sense be responsible for but, because we are human they happen, like getting pickpocketed, falling over your own feet, forgetting about that check you wrote, etc. We aren't perfect, but we can be responsible for what we do when we make fools of ourselves. All we can do is work with what we have. This is why we need to help some people who have gotten the short end of the stick in life, but we do have to be careful that we don't reinforce people's lack of responsibility in the name of niceness or helpfulness. It's not always easy or even possible to know the difference. This is what much of the political rhetoric is about.
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