I’m trying my best to be a good Buddhist these days.

That means I’m scrambling to dig up compassion for certain people in the public eye.

And I’m reminding myself about every ten minutes that all phenomena are transitory.

Along with a few other more esoteric views that might make most folks nervous.

This morning I remembered a personal experience that helped me feel a little more compassionate about a certain public figure. But I’m not sure my conclusion is headed in a politically-correct direction.

Oh, wait… There is no such thing as political correctness anymore. Everything’s effed up.

Back to my practice of compassion. I can relate to diminished ability.

In 2016, had a serious concussion during an auto accident.

I missed 3 months of work. When I first returned to my desk, I sat and stared at the File Explorer window on my computer screen for about fifteen minutes before I finally asked a co-worker to remind me which server our projects were on.

And that was after vastly improving, compared to the scrambled-egg mess that was my gray matter right after the accident.

It’s only been during 2024 that I’ve been able to remember a number sequence more than four digits long for more than three seconds. Sometimes it still takes me fifteen minutes to remember words or names that I’ve known intimately for years. My IQ test results dropped by over 10 points, and I don’t want to take another test to learn whether I’ve regained any function.

I know, Joe, it’s humiliating. And it should be humbling.

I spent over a decade attempting to resume my architecture career. The stress nearly killed me.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief when I qualified for Disability. That was about three years ago, and I’m still striving to relax, in hopes of counteracting the damage those years of mounting tension probably wrought on my body.

Admitting that I wasn’t the same sharp-as-a-whip character I had been was terrifying.

I still wince to compare my capabilities now to where I was pre-accident. And aging hasn’t helped.

But I’m learning to be okay with that.

And I’m willing to allow myself that grace, because, finally, only one person still relies on me to be on top of my game. Loving and supporting my son comes naturally, and I don’t need to be quick or brilliant to listen to him and encourage him.

But he’s not an entire nation of people.

Pretending I’m okay when I’m not . . . it hurts. And it’s dangerous.

Not asking for help feels worse. And it ramps up the stakes.

Not allowing someone else to take over the jobs I can’t do anymore is just poor judgement.

One of the hardest things for me was to recognize that I’d reached the point where others could do the job better than me—because for many years, I was one of the best at my little niche.

It was a hard choice to make, admitting decline and stepping aside. But I feel not one single regret.