Taking it on the Chin

The American adage to "take it on the chin" always brings to my mind a vision of John Wayne squinting into the sunset with grim determination and American proud.

"I ain't gonna let this trouble get me, little lady!"

But is this muscle-your-mug through the travails of life and the living of it really the way to go? A "full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes" attitude sounds wonderful and certainly defines the great action and determination of the once inimitable "American" way. But, as far as an attitude or a guiding principal to life, I believe it falls far short of an ideal way to go about things.

As a child of the fifties, my parents were part of that WWII generation that lived in a time when a "cultural imperative" was never questioned and the American way was simply the way that beat the hell out of the Nazis and the Japs and brought peace to the world. This attitude of "pull yourself up by your boot straps and march on" was fed to me right along with my cornflakes. And that new-fangled gadget, television, only came in black and white.

So, for many, many years I have put my chin out there and taken life on in a confrontational manner. "Here I am and if you don't like it then I am going to simply push through you or over you." What I was never prepared for were the things and people that I could not "muscle" out of my way, nor shape into a form of my liking. I was dumped on my butt a lot more than once and simply got up and put my sore chin right back out there again.

It never occurred to me that I could simply walk around these obstacles with my chin intact; or perhaps reconsider where I was trying to point my chin in the first place. Or, remove my chin from the situation entirely!

As I have matured and life has become so terribly complex, multi-colored and multi-dimensional, I have decided that it is time to give up bruises and fat lips. It simply isn't worth it anymore. What is the cost of "winning" when my peace of mind and a "piece" of body are at stake? I have learned to pick my battles with care. And, when examined closely, some things simply are not worth "taking it on the chin" for after all.

Robin Korth
www.insightsonaging.com