Worst Enemies

Mahler’s Monday Morning Motivator # 234 – Worst Enemies

Worst Enemies (10-27-08)

It was a bright, clear sunny day, with temperatures predicted to be in the mid-sixties and no rain in sight. In short, it was a most wondrous day to play pretend and make haste to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. My wife and I donned our costumes, or garb as the faire regulars call it, and headed for Manheim, Pennsylvania to partake in the revels. We stopped on the way for breakfast at one of our favorite spots and got more than a few good natured looks from the patrons from the area who knew that we had either materialized from a time warp somewhere out on route 442 or we were going to the faire. The latter was the general consensus.

When we entered the gates, we felt as we always do; that we were in a little world away from it all and most importantly, among friends, even if we did not know their names. It was a little step back in time where people seemed kinder, friendlier and smiles abounded. We picked up a schedule for the day’s activities and stepped to one side, just inside the portal, to decide which venues we would be visiting that day. Not a few visitors stopped and asked us questions, thinking that we were part of the cast of the faire. We gave them no reason to think otherwise and answered their questions and gave directions freely.

While standing there, I noticed a family all gathered together, also looking at the schedule and making decisions. One member, a man who looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, was seated in a motorized chair with a tank of oxygen mounted on the back and a tube leading to a small mask on his face. My heart went out to him as I remembered my own father who died in his late fifties, the result of a lifetime of smoking.

As we stood there, I saw something that utterly shocked me. This man, incapacitated by respiratory ailments and unable to even walk, had enemies. And these enemies were close at hand. And they were his worst enemies. As I watched in disbelief, one of the group produced a wrench from his pocket, applied it to the valve of the oxygen tank and turned it off, while another assisted the helpless man to remove the oxygen mask. The man in the chair then proceeded to light a cigarette. At this point, I simply could not leave, but stayed, fixed there by that morbid curiosity that we all have from time to time, like slowing down to see an accident on the highway. I waited until he finished his smoke and members of the family then restored the mask and turned on the oxygen. I thought to myself that I might as well have been a witness to a murder as this man and his family, all his worst enemies, assisted in his eventual demise.

While not as obvious as this little scenario that played out before me, I thought how often it is that we become our own worst enemies, sabotaging our goals and our aspirations, sacrificing our ideals and our principles, laying waste to our future to satisfy the mundane needs or pleasures of the present and often assisted by those whom we call friends and family. As I think back, how much I wanted to be a friend to that stranger and tell him and his family how wrong they were, but I think we all know what the result of that would have been.

Examine the things that you do for yourself and for others on a regular basis. If you find yourself making excuses, taking the easy way out or simply living for the present without regard for the future, you may be a participant, a co-conspirator in being yours or someone else’s worst enemy.
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Copyright 2004-2008 John R. Gesselberty. Mahler's Monday Morning Motivators (MMMM) may not be copied or used without permission of the author. All rights reserved.