Day 8: UNPREDICTABILITY - When Anticipation Meets the Physical.

On this day, I went out with the kids to fly a kite. Flying a kite is an activity I did a long time ago and just once. Back then, we made our own Kites. On a windy day, flying a kite can be really enjoyable and I wanted to share kite flying with my kids, only thing was, this day was not that windy as I had anticipated it to be.

I prepared the kids and of we went to the field, it was mildly windy. in my mind, I had created a future projection to the actual moment when I would fly the kite. I imagined how nice it was going to be, all the 3 of us running around and the kite flying high, all of us immersed in laughter as we ran with each other, after each other, after the kite etc. Once we arrived at the field which was large enough for us to fly kites, I quickly did the kite set up and had the kite ready within a short time.

A long time ago, the memory I had of flying a kite was by running really fast and this was have the kite fly high. back then it did. The kite I used was not really the best quality and so, I really do not have a reference point in my mind of what a good quality kite should look like, be like. When I shopped for this particular one we were to use on this particular day, the only aspect I considered was the cost. I went for the cheapest option available. and so I assumed, it would fly equally well.

as soon as I was ready with the kite, I held the string at the handle and began to run really fast, well, contrary to my imagination, the kite just dragged on the ground and managed to barely get off the ground. I kept running thinking it would fly higher, well, it did not. By this time, Crystal had already been really wanting to fly the kite and I did not really allow her because I wanted to fist show her how its done, her begging soon turned into crying and screaming for the kite. So I let her have it and asked her to run as fast as she could to fly the kite.

To my daughter, this was her first time to touch, see, explore a kite. she couldn't wait any longer to delve right into the 'mystery' that is a kite and she did. At first, she ran like I did, but her hand coordination was not really aligned with kite flying, I must say, neither were mine because, we both had no clue on how to best do it except by running fast which did not work. as she dragged the kite along with her as she ran, the string kept on tangling. By the time she came back to me, the string was all over and around her little body, it was more like, a string tangling adventure rather than a kite flying one. I had previously asked if she could give me the kite back so I could show her how its done and she completely refused. When I saw that the kite was  not flying with her at all, I began to feel frustrated and angry. when she refused my help, I was really irritated, frustrated and angry. I was frustrated that, the whole kiting thing was not turning out as I had expected. Soon after, the little one, my youngest, joined us and nothing fascinated her more than the long string on the kite. what I noticed is how she really went for the tangling experience within it where I saw her simply tangling her feet, hands, fingers, body etc. At this moment, I was even more frustrated and irritated because not, I was not kiting anymore but busy detangling string from the kids, from my stance, the whole experience was unpleasant/awful.

It was no where near or close to what my imagination had conjured up in my head. It was the actual opposite. The moments unfolded before me in almost the exact opposite of what I had imagined it would be. The field was mildly windy, the kite was poor quality, running is not really the only way to fly a kite, the kite dint take off/fly, I wanted the string a certain length - the kids wanted to undo the whole string and they did, I wanted to show crystal how its done by first learning quickly how to do it, I did not really learn and crystal did not allow me to show her, she wanted to explore it her own way, without PRESSURE from me to do it the 'right' way, I preferred having the string neat - I had to deal with a tangling and de-tangling mess, I wanted my children to listen to me and stop and follow my lead on kite flying - they wanted to explore this kiting thing their own way, I imagined we would have fun, run around laughing, all of us enjoying the kite and each other - I 'killed' the enjoyment by going into reactions of anger, frustration and irritation all because, the kiting thing dint go as well as I anticipated and the kids dint really make it easier with the string and crying and screaming. so I decided, I had had enough and I packed everything, strapped the kids on the stroller and left the field.

As I walked back home, I could see within myself how I had created the experience of myself within myself where by I ended up destroying all the opportunities I was presented with within kiting to enjoy myself and the children, to learn. here is how: the moment I went into Imagination and from within it projected myself into the future where I saw myself in the field enjoying kiting, this is the very moment where I separated myself from reality as my physical body and everything physical around me. I separated myself into my minds imaginations and became excited of an event that had not even happened, an event that was not real, it was an illusion I created in my mind of what reality would be like, and thus the actual separation of myself from my reality happened here in this very moment. Flying high in the realms of my imagination, completely detaching myself from physical reality, I did not consider the reality of flying a kite for the first time and with 2 babies. I did not equip myself with sufficient information on how to fly a kite through looking it up online and from here, expand my awareness and skills on all the possible considerations and outcomes of flying a kite which I would then apply in real-time in physical reality. Instead of doing all this, I just delved into an imaginary kite flying experience in my mind and went with it and when my imagination encountered physical reality, my oh my, did these 2 worlds collide. The experience of myself changed, I mean, it had to change because, my starting point was from separation all along and so I had to land back into reality but after such a turmoil within myself that included reactions of anger, irritation and frustration was all lead to an unpleasant experience of myself which was not enjoyable at all, my children did not enjoy me like this, nor could they enjoy themselves fully because I was all the time trying to manipulate how they should explore their reality which was from my starting point and they simply did not 'follow' my lead because for sure they must have seen, I was already so very lost, I did not know what I was doing, and above all, I was not HERE with them. That, it was actually I who needed to follow their lead because, they were simply HERE, rolling with the moment which included tangling and detangling themselves within the kite string and they did not react because this was happening, to them it was so fascinating.

I did Self forgiveness and some of the realizations that came through were:

I realized that, when my minds imaginations encountered the unpredictable nature of the physical reality, chaos set in within me because, I did not stand as the stability of myself within my physical body as I separated myself into my mind as imagination and thus I was not really here/equal and one with the physical to direct the unpredictable physical reality moments from within this stability, but I rather reacted to these unpredictable moments and from within these reactions, I further separated myself from what was really physically happening right in front of me, I could not see, my starting point was that of separation, I held on to my imagination, and the more I held on to it, the less and less I could embrace and roll with and enjoy the unpredictability of the physical and learn more about my physical self from it instead of reacting to it. And so here, I greatly diminished myself as the potential I would have become and lived/stood within and as to show my children through example on how to really be HERE as directive principle of ones life within the unpredictable nature of the physical reality so as to always ensure that, the outcome of IT ALL is what's best for all, nothing more, nothing less. This is the principle of equality and oneness as LIFE living HERE, making what's best for all an actual real livable measurable quantifiable reality in the physical/our world.

I realized that, because children are more aligned to/with and as the physical, they don't usually react to the physical, while observing my children in this moment, I could see that, they were not really bothered by whether the kite flew or not, whether they were tangled or not tangled in the kite string, whether it was a string mess or not. To them, dragging the kite on the ground was all there was to it in that moment, tangling and de-tangling themselves in the string was really no big deal to them, that was all there was to it. I did not see them yelling and screaming at each other for not having the kite flying or for being tangled within the kite string. The one that was busy teaching them to react to this given physical reality moment was myself. At this moment, I did not stand equal and one to the physical reality in this moment, equal and one with the entire activity or with them leave alone myself and because I was so separate, all I could teach them was based on separation of right and wrong for example, I stood as the reactions of anger, frustration and irritation towards that given reality and so I was literally teaching them that, when things don't work out in reality, that we should react and not find other ways, other solutions, we should blame the kite or the weather or each other and not take self responsibility and become directive principle of every single unpredictable physical moment and created a solution that when applied will created an outcome of what's best for all, nothing more, nothing less.

I realized that with children, one can not really anticipate or desire a certain outcome wile working with physical reality and children. This is because, children at such an early age are usually always moving, touching, exploring anything and everything physical and as a parent, my role is not to project my perceptions, judgments, anticipations, desires of a particular outcome on to them but rather to simply guide them through it all especially in terms of what can physically dangerous to them. Ironically, at the moment, my children are playing my 'role' where they sort of are the parent and I the child, because, I as the parent have separated myself from physical reality by creating all these perceptions, judgments, beliefs, desires, anticipations of a certain outcome etc. which is not only a form of self limitation but also a manipulative and spiteful way of existing if we look at it really where we project our limited separate reality as for example an imagination or a desire to manipulate reality and everything and everyone in it so as to have an outcome that is only best for me/self, to glorify self, make only self happy at the expense of countless suffering, make self seem more/important/superior/special etc. which is the main reason why our world is so messed up today because we are all separate from physical reality and locked ourselves into the bubble of our minds perceptions, judgments, beliefs, desire, anticipations, fears etc. Having observed my children, they do not live nor express themselves from within the starting point of separation, I as a parent do and this is why I must change my starting point from that of separation to that of equality and oneness so I stand as an example for my children to learn from and keep expressing themselves from within the starting point of equality and oneness as what's best for all, children are indeed Innocent/pure/harmless so to speak, until we as parents/adults corrupt them with our limited perception of reality where we consider nothing or no one except self and sooner or later, children pick up on/learn  this spiteful nasty way of living and treating each other as humans let alone other life forms and above all self.

I realized how in my mind, when I was imagining the experience of kite flying, the anticipation, here within my mind, I felt I was really in control of how everything was going to go and how I was going to eventually experience myself as happy, having fun etc. I imagined how I was going to control the whole moment so that we can all meet my desired anticipated outcome. when my anticipation and imaginations met the physical reality, it stood no chance in terms of control. It was obvious that, in as much as I felt in control in my mind and how I was going to control the Physical, this simply was invalid. everything within this moment became so unpredictable and the outcomes I kept getting were not in alignment with my perceived desire of controlling the whole moment of flying a kite and my experience there of. Here, it was obvious that, one can not control the physical reality in terms of an imaginary process to create a certain outcome like I did. an imaginary process is simply an imaginary process, its not real and therefore, it can not stand within and as the reality that is so physical and furthermore so unpredictable and thus its really meaningless to even try to impose onto the physical my imagination/desire and anticipation of a particular outcome like how I imagined a smooth kite flying adventure without considering the physical reality of both the weather and the children and where we were etc. there was very little wind for starters and i couldn't even see through all my perceptions and judgments

So I made a decision to learn about how to fly a kite, when and where to fly a kite, to look up good quality kites and even how we can create our very own home made kite. I decided to go out again to fly a kite with the kids but this time, want to ensure that, I am not separate from physical reality by anticipating or imagining how it is going to turn out, I am simply going to roll with the moment. I am going to equip myself with knowledge and information on how to fly a kite by looking up on google or YouTube, then ill look for a solution to a better kite. On the actual kite flying time, ill make sure that I let go of any desires to have the kite fly a certain way and I shall also let go of any form of wanting to control my children to fly the kite 'my way or no way'. I shall simply stand with my children equal and one while we all explore kite flying, not expecting certain outcomes or anything in return but simply rolling with the physical reality and what will have to be offered for I realize that, its not really about the unpredictability of the physical reality or of being with my children, but its all about WHO I AM WITHIN IT ALL. Am I equal and one with/as the physical and all there is to it in any particular moment moving and directing myself from within to without so as to take absolute responsibility of anything and everything that steps forth from within the physical and ensure that my decision bears an outcome that is what's best for all in real time or  have I separated myself from physical reality by going into the limited bubbles of my mind where I generate illusions as perceptions, judgments, desires, anticipations, beliefs about physical reality instead of seeing physical reality simply for what it is as IS. Also, when and if I see my children exploring the kite a certain way out of the blue, I shall ensure that, I remain stable within myself and not react to what they are doing but actually join them and we do it together and within the doing, I can decide to show them how to for example remain patient and detangle themselves from the string by showing them through doing or how we can all practically work with the string which is usually very long by either tying it a certain way or cutting it so as to prevent the string from becoming a danger to the children.

In my next blog, I shall share how the practical application went.

Day 7: I AM AN IMMIGRANT, THERE ARE SOLUTIONS TO THE CURRENT IMMIRANTS CRISIS.

Many of us have watched in the news about the outpouring of immigrants into Europe. Many of these immigrants have faced harsh conditions of travel, some of whom have lost their lives as in the case of the thousands upon thousands of immigrants that have died on the ‘waters’ of Italy for example.

Many consequences have been created with such an outpouring of immigrants into Europe. I talked to 2 immigrants now living in Switzerland (one on asylum and the other through marriage to a Swiss woman), one of the 2 came by cargo ship from the coast of Nigeria. He narrated to me how his living conditions had been back home, having 3 kids and no way to make ends meet in regards to having an income, he was forced to save the little that he was making each day over a long period of time (years) because believe it or not, these immigrants don’t get free transportation to Europe. They pay large sums of money amounting to thousand if not ten thousands of Euros. One of these 2 immigrants payed over €10,000 to the point where she had to settle down in Switzerland. Many may wonder why pay so much money and risk one’s life to come to Europe? Well, much of the money these two used was borrowed money with the hope of making a better income in Europe so re-pay back the loan. The other immigrant on Asylum came from a war tone country in Africa, she simply couldn’t survive there with her newborn child and being sick, so she gathered herself and her baby and off to Europe she came. She narrated to me that, she really wanted medical attention otherwise she would have died back in her war tone home either by being killed in the war or dying in sickness and she just couldn’t imagine her child’s life without her!

The 2 cases above depict the main reasons why immigrants leave their countries and come to Europe or other developed countries; to search for a better life in terms of earning a decent income to support their families or to escape war that many at times creates adverse consequences in a country for example, a deterioration in health care, education, poverty, displacement, disease etc. which makes the very survival of anyone threatened. Most of the human beings or life form on earth whether understood or not is currently fighting for survival in a world that has more than enough to support each and every living beings’ survival and thriving. So, where then is the problem? Why are masses ditching their countries for the ‘hope’ of finding a better life in another country?

Myself, I am equally an immigrant who moved to Europe because, I was at a point in my life where my very survival was threatened in terms of not having money. I did not have shelter that I could call home, I lived in my friends parents’ home. I barely had enough money to buy food, I couldn’t afford transport money for public transportation to attend a job interview or looks for a job. Many times, I had to choose either walking to the city to look for a job or attend an interview or buy food. One time, which was really the worst time that drove me to making the decision of migrating to Europe was when, I had just 10 Kenya shilling in my pocket (€0.10) and an orange. So here, I had to really calculate my decision with the food (the 1 orange) as well as the money, the 10 Kenya shilling. The money was only enough for transport during ‘non-rush’ hours and only half way to my destination. So I i knew that, I had to take the non-rush hour half way option and walk the rest of the way. This time I was going to a job interview. Coming back home, it was obvious, I had to walk. The hardest part was the food part because, with just one orange, I knew it was not enough to sustain my energy needs but this was all I had. So I decided to eat the orange as I walked back home because this would give me extra energy to walk the entire way to a ‘home’ that was not even mine.

This was my final Blow! My ‘hit rock bottom’ moments. So I decided to take the opportunity immigrating to Europe which in itself was quite a journey up till the point where I was now legally accepted to live and work here. A story for another day.

Unfortunately, this is not the only way that this immigrant’s crisis has directly affected my life. Last year, I tried to get my mother to come visit me in Switzerland as well as help me out with my newborn baby and spend time with my eldest child, her granddaughter. She is currently living in Oregon USA. They denied her a visa on peculiar grounds. It came as a big shock to her and myself, she was devastated, appealing was just a waste of money because the Swiss immigration did not accept my cousin to visit either. My mother has never physically been my children, her grandchildren. My children know her through skype but that’s just it. This happened because, I understand not, Switzerland has tightened its immigration laws so despite us providing all the evidence that they required from us to have a relative visit me here especially financially, they still said NO.

This immigrant’s problem is not going to go away on its own. Many countries have reacted to this problem in violent aggressive ways especially from the police. Immigrants are perceived as a threat to a countries economy, an economy is valued by its amount of money and we do know that, the more the immigrants, the more moneywill be used to solve the many consequences that come with having a largenumber of immigrants in terms of shelter, clothing, health care, education etc.  Many European countries are complaining that, they do not have sufficient funds to cater for all the immigrants needs. So humanitarians have stepped in to help but it seems like the support is not enough, can never be the end solution as many more immigrants will still risk their lives from all over the affected areas in the globe for a chance of a better survival in Europe or elsewhere.

For the EU countries to really solve this immigrants Crisis, a solutions must be brought to where the problem begins in the first place otherwise, the longer we ignore this, the worse it will become and it will not go away until the solution is brought to the people living in dire poverty where one can barely survive or in the war torn countries.

The equal Life Foundation has proposed a Living income to be guaranteed for every human being so that they can afford to live a dignified life that is free from the fear of survival which is the very fear that is driving immigrants to Europe. I would recommend everyone to investigate this proposal so we can work together in granting everyone an opportunity exist within an environment that supports every need that they require to survive in a dignified way, for is this then not ensuring that, human rights have been upheld in each and every corner or the world?

If I had a basic income guaranteed for me to meet my every need, I am certain that, my move to Europe would not have been in any way influenced my very survival being threatened. Am pretty sure if every persons needs were full taken care of within the provision of a living income for all, no one would wish to migrate from their home countries. so lets give a living income to everyone to support themselves within their home environment and the immigration crisis will end.

 

 

Day 6: STAY AT HOME MOM, SYSTEM WORKING MOM - Part 3

........The last point I would like to share here is in regards to what I recently realized I have been accepting and allowing that has been sending me into reaction mode instead of taking responsibility through changing.......

 

In the recent times, I noticed that, whenever my partner or someone mentioned that I have so much help and I’m doing nothing, I immediately went into the reaction of anger and frustration as an experience of myself within myself. At first, I blamed my partner for not seeing just how much I am responsible for in terms of raising our children. I felt he undermined and belittled my responsibilities as a mother whereby, how he working in the system perceives his responsibilities as of much more value than my responsibilities of raising our children. This honestly pissed me off that he did not recognize nor respect my efforts. To make this worse, because I have someone that helps with cleaning and at times (if needed) with children, this perception of me by others as lazy and having too much help  and too much time to do nothing increased and this only heightened my reactions of anger and frustration towards such people including my partner. They had no clue how little I slept at night only to wake up to a busy day.

I was compared many times to other mothers that have no help and yet, they can do it all alone. I tried doing this by myself, it just did not work for me, us. With little sleep and caring for children plus a big house, this took a toll on me both physically and mentally as well as emotionally. At the end of each day, I was so exhausted to do any more, in as much exhausted as I was, my reality did not allow me to rest. I had had/have an infant that needed/still needs me throughout the night. My babies are not perfect sleepers. My eldest can now sleep throughout the night but my youngest still needs me to wake up several times a night to feed her. I received books, online education on how to make a baby sleep the whole night without interruption, well, my little one digests food fast and within sometime, it’s all out and she needs to feed some more. I mean, in as much as others wanted to support me to support my daughter to sleep throughout the night, my reality was different. I stick to my reality and I support my child(ren) the best way I know how in any given moment. This quickly took a toll on my body and a few times, I had a complete burn out, others, I fainted and even once, I had to go to ER because I suddenly I couldn’t walk and my world seemed to be crashing down around me, I was petrified because I did not understand then that, this was exhaustion and thus went to ER.

But for me, what was the worst was who I was becoming towards my children. Being exhausted all the time, I became quite emotional and had anger outbursts at times. Any little thing agitated me so much, I was too tired to interact with my babies and this ‘crashed my heart’. It became quite a battle to remain stable within myself and direct my reality from within stability. I did not enjoy who I was within and hence without. I knew something had to change. My partner also being extremely busy with his work responsibilities left him little to no time to help me out. He is away almost 16 hours a day, so one can imagine how equally exhausted he gets at the end of each day. Our quality of life in terms of our relationship towards each other and our children was diminishing and so we decided to have long term help especially cleaning so I can focus only on the children. This has been a tremendous step we took towards supporting each other.

So why then am I still reacting to people perceiving me as ‘doing nothing’ even after I see clearly that, I was overriding my physical body to the extent of blacking out because of just how much was doing? Was it because I now have help and I don’t do much house work? Hmmmm…NO.

I realized that, it’s actually been because of my whole entire approach to my responsibilities as a mother. It has been who I have been within it all. Let me share here another example of myself to further elaborate this point. A while back, due to many circumstances, at some point in my life, which was after graduating from Uni, I had decided to be a career woman. I thought to myself, a husband and kids may not be a life for me unless I met a man responsible enough to be a father. This decision came because I had dated men that were quite irresponsible and so I made an assumption that, many if not all men are irresponsible, the father figures in my life were not responsible either. And so I was not willing to settle for such an irresponsible man even and thus the no marriage and not kids for me ‘theory’.

My path of chasing down my career did not prosper as one can imagine living in an environment where there’s thousands upon thousands of university graduates all aiming for a job in a jobs starved country. For over 2 years, my plan was not becoming a reality for me. I became disappointed many times. I was willing to work for any salary as I was as broke as can be! As some would say, I was flat broke. No shelter and no money for food, I walked to go for interviews as I couldn’t afford transportation by bus, I was desperate, I mean who wouldn’t be. By this time, I had met my current partner back then but I was not willing to relocate from my country because I still hoped that, I can make ends meet and embark on my career. Well, I remember there was some pressure from my partner to relocate and it wasn’t until after a few months that I gave in, found ways and means and voila, I relocated, and after a couple of months, got married and a year later, the first child was here. Before the first child, my partner and I had a mutual clear agreement that I will be a stay at home mom.

So the problem begun when I started comparing myself to my University mates. Some had gone further and acquired masters degrees, and a few even up to PhD levels. So within myself, thoughts began creeping in about if I’d made the right choice to be a mother. When I saw just how much further my friends were in their careers, I began to feel sorry for myself, I begun to diminish myself and my responsibilities as a mother. I began to perceive my parenting role as a ‘nothing’, not a job, has no reward in terms of money, career, and recognition. Id backchats like, all I do is sit and play with babies day in day out.

I had regrets on choosing to be a mother. Regret because I felt that, I had to give up so much of myself, in fact all of myself to care for another. I felt like I lost myself completely within this responsibility. I was a completely different person when my first child arrived. My life changed overnight! I felt like, my life, my freedom had been robbed. I literally felt like ‘I’ DIED. It was obvious that my reality, my life had changed completely, but yet, I was not willing to embrace this change, I wanted to push it away, far far away so that I can have ‘me’ back, my freedom back, this just happened in my mind even though my reality screamed otherwise. I imagined what my life would have been like had I succeeded in being a career woman. I kept comparing my life to that of my childless friends fully immersed in their careers or chasing one. I felt that I missed out on that life. I felt I would have become ‘so much more’ having a career as opposed to being a mother and a stay at home mother in this case.

This perception of myself as a mother as less than, inferior to the working woman, mother or not, is what has been stirring up my reactions of anger and frustration whenever my partner mentions the words, ‘you are doing nothing’.  These words resonate within myself as a mirror of how I have actually been perceiving myself within my role as a mother which has been, ‘I am just sitting around with kids doing nothing’ being a mother is nothing because I am not out there working in a system where all value is based on money and not life, thus myself as well as masses out there perceive being a mother as valueless as there is no form of monetary reward, that I am not a strong woman.

Another point I have created and held within my mind that has been influencing the perception of my role as a mother as a nothing role, is that of, associating interactions with people who work in the system, corporate system as more valuable interactions, more valuable relationships that will make me ‘get noticed’ (EGO) in comparison to interacting or associating myself with children or childlike stuff day in day out! So here again, another example of how I have diminished myself and the potential I can embody and live as the absolute point of stability of an example of what it means to raise a human being that will consider and regard all life from within the principle of equality and oneness as what’s best for all, which begins with me stopping being elsewhere and actually starting to embrace the whole responsibility of motherhood.

so, I realized that, to me the most important aspect about being a mother is who I am within myself within it all. who I am within myself while fulfilling my responsibilities of being a mother to my children be it during play time, bed time, book time, outdoors time and any other time/moment I spend with my children. I ask myself, is who I am within myself stable, HERE and ready to embrace the entire moment am with my children or am I existing elsewhere in my mind worrying about career or working in the system to make money, comparing myself with other mothers and end up competing with them on who's job/responsibilities are more valuable than the others or am I being a mother to get recognition and praise from others to boost my ego and much more. I understand that, each mother faces different responsibilities in how they care for their children.

Bottom line is, it shouldn't be about a war between system working moms and stay at home moms, but rather about who we are within ourselves as mothers and how we live and interact with our children. This is so important as this is the very point that will determine the very foundation of a child that will become the future adult as what a child will learn, will mimic/copy from us as mothers/parents/adults and therefore, we should stand and live as the best example of what care, respect and honor of another human being is all about and not make it about judgment, comparison, beliefs, perceptions etc as this only diminishes our ability and potential to live HERE as the best example our children can emulate to also become the best they can become in honoring life as themselves and others. It should be about assisting and supporting eachother to raise our children into adults that regard, honor, respect and care for the  life and all that is here, regardless of whether you work in the system of stay at home with the kids.
 

For the world exists as it does today due to our parents not having known any better and their parents not having known any better and thus from generation to generation, the sins of our fathers is what we teach our children to live by today and this is one of the major reasons why our world isn’t changing, because we as parents have not changed. For how will this world ever change if we as parents do not teach our children changes that we ourselves have and a living by? Changes that have been walked and lived in regards to what’s best for all?