Originally On LinkedIn With Some Edits Here: No Shoes...That's a Problem, With Or Without Feet

"I have no shoes, and I'd complain about that. Then I saw a man with no feet."

That apparently-wise piece of advice angers me to no end. As I posted when I saw that proverb surface again, it was in the form of a comment on a Facebook picture that illustrated an equally-unwise piece of advice: basically, shut up and don't complain about what you don't have, especially since quite a few have less than you. I therefore finally voiced my take on Facebook, since I as a person with mental illnesses and other conditions have had enough of the "no shoes" proverb:

This is beyond short sighted, and here's what I stated about it on my personal Facebook timeline:"As a person with disabilities, I can tell you that there are 😲 invisible disabilities, including MS, Lupus, and 😨 mental illnesses. Also, some people with visible physical disabilities can 😱walk to some extent 🤯 (I know; right? 🙄)

"PS The man who has no shoes...may end up with no feet because he doesn't have shoes."Also, the man may have no shoes because he may, for all that anyone knows, just may have Schizophrenia that is severe enough to the point at which he cannot work to have money for buying shoes; and somewhere along the line, he became convinced that his Schizophrenia and thus inability to work is not as debilitating as, for example, losing feet due to a childhood disease or being born without feet. Someone might have told him:

"'Be thankful for what you have. Perspective is everything. You can walk. Just walk to a homeless shelter for God's sake and let them help you...'"

"This despite that a homeless shelter once told him, 'We don't accept Schizophrenics like you.'

"By the way, he can't afford medication that will help him manage his Schizophrenia and be able to hold a job.

"PS Using people with visible physical disabilities to diminish people with invisible disabilities, and vice versa, is ableist: we are not pawns for able-bodied and non-illness-afflicted people to try to get their foolish arguments across.

~The page creator and moderator"

Also by the way, why (for instance) do you think that the Nazis forced their victims to either give up their shoes or wear ones that hurt their feet? To teach them a proverb? Or perhaps cause them to (for example) have infected feet that would cause them to have sepsis and/or gangrene. 

Think before you consider a piece of advice to be wise, let alone timelessly wise just because it's been given for millennia in some or another form. While you think, remember those whom apparently-wise-although-foolish advice especially affected: remember those such as Holocaust victims whom lost their feet and could never walk again (let alone have livelihoods and start new lives) even if they did survive, and non-surviving Holocaust victims (z"l) whom died due to infected feet that became infected when their either wore shoes that caused their feet to blister or didn't have shoes at all. Also remember those with invisible illnesses whom were murdered in the T4 Program (such as my distant cousin Magdalena Rusznak, z"l, whom was murdered because she had Schizophrenia, although she was also Anti-Semitically murdered) and those with invisible illnesses such as PTSD that caused them to have agoraphobia wherever they could find to live (and thus had no chances to have livelihoods and start new lives).

A Modified Copied-and-Pasted Facebook Post On Aging

(And no, you don't have to copy and paste. I'm just modifying this a little as I copy and paste it because it's an albe-painful reminder that those of us under 35 are getting older, too).

To everyone whom has come of age and is only aging more and more every day:

We are going through the next stage of our lives. We are at ages at which we see more and more wrinkles, gray hair, and extra pounds. We think about the fact that quite a few of us were just even 25 seemingly yesterday, and just slightly younger than that just as if it were only a few days before that. Now we're either closer to 35 or further away from 35 on the older side of it than we ever thought that we could be in just a short amount of time, and the 25-and-younger crowd will be just like us one day (😢. You do get that old before you know it, and the worst part is getting old as you get older.).

What we once brought to the table with whatever youth and zest for life we had will become either wisdom, experience, and good hearts that older people are expected to have or the haughtiness, stubbornness, and miserliness of the proverbial old fool—"Better is a poor, wise youth than a foolish old king." We've earned each of our gray hairs for either what we've endured or made others endure, too.

Don't think that aging necessarily means being like a classic or like a fine wine, either. Our exteriors may not be what they once were, and any looks that we do retain will either mean nothing or be like the proverbial "gold ring in a pig's snout" if we deliberately forego having (let alone increasing) spirit, courage and strength in entering and exiting the coming chapters of our lives with grace and dignity; and may we never pride ourselves in what we've endured and accomplished—may we be humbled by and learn from it.

May God "[t]each us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom"—especially since we don't know if we have the rest of today, let alone tomorrow and any days thereafter.

Even if you decide to not copy, paste, and modify this with your age and a picture of you, look at the recent-enough picture that I have posted of my currently-28-years-old self and apply Marley's words to Scrooge to how you yourself are aging:

"Look to me no more. Look, that you may remember what has passed."