Proverb

They are roofing my apartment.  It started at 7:30 yesterday and after I got ove the initial terror of the thought that someone was breaking in, I emailed my new building management.  Chris was ready to fire off a "What the hell" email, but cooler heads prevailed and we sent an inquisitive note instead.  She said it would take a week.  I think less, but it's always better to give an outside estimate, just in case; if you think three days, say a week and everyone is happy at how quickly it was done.  If you say three days and it takes a week, well...

I was sweeping my doorstep of the debris and I went a bit along the walkway to clear it as well. I remembered a "proverb" I had heard.  I just looked up "proverb" as I usually associate it with a book of the Bible.  It is a "short pithy saying, stating general truth or a piece of advice."  What I was thinking was what I THOUGHT was Confucius ( ok the guy gets a bad rap, but he had some pretty revolutionary ideas for his time, even if his words are reduced to fortune cookies and racist jokes)  "Let each man sweep in front of his own door and the whole world will be clean"  Turns out it's Goethe.  Who knew?

I stood on my stoop, pondering that for a moment.  I thought about the basic idea, that if you clean up around yourself and everyone cleans up around themselves, we would definitely have a cleaner community.  But you know Goethe was not really talking about getting out there every day with a broom and sweeping the leaves and dirt from the steps, or at least that is what I am thinking about it.   He means we need to clean ourselves, not our physical bodies ( although that is good in a polite society, although in the pandemic when we don't see one another, I wonder - not for too long- about that practice.) I think he means to sweep our minds.  Clear out the cobwebs that might be left by misinformation or lies we are taught to believe.  Sweep the  corners of your mind and make room for new ideas.  I am not saying you should ( as the saying goes) throw out the baby with the bathwater, but take time to evaluate what you think and see if you need to change anything.  There is a Jackson Browne song, where he goes back over his life a bit in which he says "I don't know how I believed some of the things I thought"

I know for myself, some of the things people around me at one time or another got into my head.  They pop to the surface and I think "WHOA, now that's is one screwed up thing to think" and I push it out as not part of MY thinking, but dismiss it as someone else's problem.  

I am only responsible for the thoughts I have and the actions I take.  I can try to talk to someone about their misdirection on an issue, but I can't change what is in their head.  I can only hope a dialog with them will begin to bring about a change.  I can sweep in front of my own doorstep and hope others can do the same.