You Decide

I have thought about the following quote over and over since I read it. I have tried to write about it and what it means to me. So far I am unable to do that even though I know how I feel and how it relates to my life. Therefore, my friends, I offer it to you with no commentary to let you decide for yourselves. Whatever you feel, it will be worth them time it takes to read and absorb the message.

In an article entitled "The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic" (The Atlantic, 7/12/2020), authors Elliot Aronson and Carol Tavris tell this wonderful story. 

Shimon Peres, Israel’s former prime minister, was angered by his friend Ronald Reagan’s disastrous official visit to a cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, where members of the Waffen SS were buried. When asked how he felt about Reagan’s decision to go there, Peres could have reduced dissonance in one of the two most common ways: thrown out the friendship or minimized the seriousness of the friend’s action. He did neither. “When a friend makes a mistake,” he said, “the friend remains a friend, and the mistake remains a mistake."