I met Steve, who had volunteered for a prison program that paired up victims and assailants as part of a rehabilitation process. Within the short three months that Steve and I conversed, he gave me a new lens to view the world with too, and I will always be grateful for his generosity in helping me understand the difference between independence and interdependent living.
Bob Dylan once described the difference between independence and interdependence to his friend Hunter S. Thompson, with the aid of his guitar. He played a G note and said, “with that note, you can set a tone,” then he strummed a G chord, and said, “with those three notes played together, you create harmony.”
When I met Steve, he had PTSD. Being the victim of a violent crime was the reason got his suffering. Steve’s front teeth were knocked out by the butt of an AK-47, a weapon being used to rob a bank. Steve and his youngest son were there to deposit money the boy had earned delivering papers into a savings account for the boy.
I met Steve, who had volunteered for a prison program that paired up victims and assailants as part of a rehabilitation process. Within the short three months that Steve and I conversed, he gave me a new lens to view the world with too, and I will always be grateful for his generosity in helping me understand the difference between independence and interdependent living.
For the next six years, Steve was a man who felt as if he were standing in quicksand. His life was fueled by the need to maximize the safety net around his family and impose a discipline upon them that he did not understand or find it possible to adhere to. Every day was a struggle to breathe.
One day he came upon a book called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey that he said altered his dysfunctional life. It gave him a new lens to view the world. He said he had found a foothold that eventually freed him from the psychological trap that he so long been mired in.
That’s about the time I met Steve, who had volunteered for a prison program that paired up victims and assailants as part of a rehabilitation process. Within the short three months that Steve and I conversed, he gave me a new lens to view the world. I will always be grateful for his generosity in helping me understand the difference between independence and interdependent living. As Redd Greene used to say: “We’re all in this together, I’m rooting for ya!”
