Put your oxygen mask on before assisting others.

I flew to the South to visit my daughter and watch her theatrical performance-- a pleasure I haven't been able to enjoy for a few years, due to our distance geographically and her busy academic schedule.

So, of course, I heard the flight attendants' usual spiel about the safety features of the plane and the use of the oxygen mask. As ever, the attendant included the caution:

Put your oxygen mask on before assisting others.

Now I am far from the first to note how appropriate this advice is to life in general. You have to be able to breathe, if you want to help others to breathe. If you don't take care of yourself, you won't be there to take care of anyone else.

So, taking care of number one IS important. Who will argue that?

Well, actions speak louder than words and I feel we are so out of balance.

Some of us grab our oxygen masks, put them on, and grab our neighbors' too, just in case ours don't work.

Some of us suffocate ourselves and those who need our help by not heeding that essential instruction: put your oxygen mask on before assisting others. We are refusing to value our own selves enough to take care of basic needs, and claiming to value others so highly that we rush off to save them before we ourselves are safe.

And soon, they, as well as we, are lost.

More meditations on this topic: Breathe: I so often forget to breathe. If only an oxygen mask would pop out each time I had a change in the cabin pressure of my life.