CARLTON FLETCHER: Finding a cure for the self-pity blues

Poor, poor pitiful me; Poor, poor pitiful me.

— Warren Zevon (RIP)

As I watched the woman try to navigate the uneven sidewalk in her wheelchair, her face a mask of concentration as she moved from side to side in an attempt to continue the journey toward her appointed destination, I looked on with equal parts admiration and pity.

This anonymous, legless person, whose life had obviously seen tragedy that I could only imagine, moved her motorized transport with the skill of a traffic engineer, avoiding a cracked segment of concrete here and a root that had broken through the sidewalk’s surface there. She seemed oblivious to the countless cars whizzing past, their drivers intent on reaching their appointed destinations as well.

I found myself rooting for her, hoping she’d manage to avoid all the potential pitfalls that awaited, but then I quickly realized that, given the skills she exhibited that had obviously been honed through practice, she probably could navigate that treacherous walkway in her wheelchair better than I could now with my two halfway decent legs.

A few days later, feeling weighed down by the demands of this life I live, I found myself starting to indulge in a bit of self-pity. I considered the tasks that awaited — most of them, admittedly, self-imposed — and the many goals still unfulfilled, and it was easy enough to rail inwardly against the randomness of fate. I thought of the thieves, the swindlers, the crooked politicians and businessmen, the outlaws who’d never worked a day in their lives, the welfare/disability cheats who’d lied their way into my pockets, and I couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of regret that I chose to earn an honest living.

Then two images came to me.

I saw my dad, weary from a day of hard labor, laying bricks in the 90-plus-degree heat then coming home to tend to the farmland on our old homeplace. On any number of occasions this simple man who never even had an opportunity to go to high school told me, “If you’re going to take pay from a man, give him an honest day’s work, no matter what the job is.”

I also saw that battered woman in her wheelchair, noting in my mind her singular focus on the task at hand. I didn’t stop and ask her questions about the life she lived, so my impression of her is only conjecture. But I imagine as she sought to make her way from where ever she’d been to where ever she was going, she didn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about what a raw deal life had laid on her.

In my mind, she was too intent upon reaching her appointed destination to worry about what all those people passing by who didn’t even give her a glance. I imagine even if I’d gotten out of my car to offer assistance or to ask if she had needs that I could help her meet, she would have plodded forward, her eyes on that next obstacle that lay between where she was and where she needed to be.

As I considered those images — of the man who instilled in me a work ethic that does not allow me to profit from the labor of others and of the woman who pushed doggedly forward with a single goal in mind — I was ashamed of my self-pity and of the time I spent worrying about those around me who would gladly take from strangers to avoid having to earn their way in life.

So I went back to work.

A FINAL NOTE: RIP Joe Cocker. You had your imitators — John Belushi did you best, rest his soul — but no one quite did rock and roll the way you did. From “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” to “You Are So Beautiful” to the iconic “With a Little Help From My Friends” at Woodstock, you earned your place in rock history. I’m glad I got to see you perform; your music will live on.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].