Krauthammer

"If the treatment is killing your patients, you stop the treatments." - Charles Krauthammer on changing from a liberal to a conservative.

So, here is an example of the opposite of the victim mentality.

Charles Krauthammer.

The son of immigrants, Charles worked hard and earned a spot at Harvard Medical School.  One summer, Charles dove into a pool, hit his head and immediately became paralyzed.  Charles has never recovered the full use of his arms and legs.

But, did that stop him?

Nope.

Charles finished Harvard Medical School WITH HIS CLASS.  He is now a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has had over 30 years of success.

Why do I mentioned Charles after the class warfare story?

(Well, he has a new book out and is doing interviews.)

But, also it is because Charles' story didn't have to end this way.  He could have chosen a very different path.  He could have lain in that hospital bed and become sad, sullen, angry even.

He had his whole life ahead of him and to suddenly become paralyzed and have it all taken away.

It's not fair.

But, that is not what he did.  He asked Harvard to let him continue his education.  They hung a plexi-glass table over his bed and placed books facedown on it so that he could read his books.  Professors came in and showed lesson notes on the ceiling.  (I know a thing or two about accommodating nurses.  I may tell you about it another time.)

Krauthammer was not a victim.

And, as he entered the world of political journalism, his whole worldview changed.  He saw that democratic policies were not helping the people that they were supposed to help.  "If the treatment is killing your patients, you stop the treatments."

This is what thinking people do.  They take control of their own lives.  They look around, they think about what is going on.  If it isn't working they change it.

They don't continue walking around in their underwear pretending that they have on invisible clothes.  They tell the truth, seek the truth and live by it.

More of us should do that.