Olive Trees

I recall reading once, a long time ago, of people who would plant olive trees knowing that the trees would not fruit in their lifetimes, but rather that their grandchildren would see the first harvests.  They were not looking only at their own lives, their own wants or needs, but at what future people would benefit from their present actions.

Oh, how I adore that.

I don't know if we will experience the positive social and legal changes I hope for in my lifetime.  Perhaps it will be my children, or grandchildren, who benefit from the writing and exhorting I do now.  I can live with that.  I can live with knowing that some future generation will pluck fruit from the trees I am planting now.

Change is inevitable.

Why are we humans so fearful of embracing it?  Especially when that change is towards compassion, kindness, caring?

Yesterday I voted.  I did so as a compassionate, kind, and caring being,  I did so thinking not of myself and what I want or need now, but of the people around me, the next generations, of how I could help make a stronger tomorrow.

Idealistic?  Yes.  Foolish?  Perhaps.  But you know what?  I felt better about voting than I have in years.

I think I will continue to buck the trend.  I think I will encourage my fellow humans to do the same.  Who knows, perhaps we may start a whole new trend?

Are you in?  Let's plant some trees...