My Birthday PlayList for Tense Times

Cecilia Sepp, CAE, ACNP

The world is becoming tense again. It’s not the first time it has happened and it likely won’t be the last. The frustrating thing is that we never seem to learn our lesson about why times become tense and ultimately violent. I have an inkling of an idea I’d like to share with you, and it relates directly to content we have included in our ethics course in the past. 

Let me share an example from my personal experience earlier this week. I had the opportunity to meet my friend Anne DarConte for breakfast in DC and we had a great time catching up. As all good things do, it had to end so I took the Metro back to Silver Spring to get the car from the parking garage so I could make the AWTC Marketing Committee call. I knew I would be a few minutes late, but I stayed calm since I was driving on Route 29/Colesville Road. The traffic there is dense, especially in downtown Silver Spring, but if you stay patient and get past Spring Street, the traffic usually flows pretty well. Please note I said “usually.” 

I merged into the right lane so I would be ready to make my turn to get to my neighborhood – and  I nearly rear-end a US Postal Service delivery truck. It was parked in front of an apartment building with its “magic blinkers on” as my Dad used to say. This referred to people stopping their car wherever they wanted, but because their hazards – aka “magic blinkers” – were on, this somehow made it okay. Well, it doesn’t make it okay to park in a traffic lane, especially if you are a representative of a government or semi-government entity. Those who represent our government, thus our society, should be aware of the example they set. 

Lately I have been trying to be calmer about things and consider other alternatives to why people do what I consider incredibly stupid things. I considered the options and thought the postal worker was likely delivering a package in the apartment building and would be out quickly. Despite blocking traffic, it likely wouldn’t last long. As I was evaluating oncoming traffic to find a safe window to merge, I saw the postal worker walking down the other side of the street. Delivering mail. Like a regular route. 

This postal worker was holding up traffic on Route 29 for their own convenience. He obviously didn’t care about the other people on the road, and he definitely didn’t care about following the law or the rules of the road. Adding to his poor choices, he further damaged the reputation of the US Postal Service with his bad behavior. 

Yes, you guessed it: I got MAD. How annoying! How frustrating! What a jerk, I thought to myself. After I merged into traffic and continued my journey home, I realized at the next stop light that he was behaving unethically because of one word: SELF. 

In the ethics course I lead with Cheryl Ronk, a past edition focused on the word SELF and how that leads to so many unethical choices. Focusing on self leads to an erosion of integrity. The four major areas related to this are:

1. Self Interest: Things we want

2. Self-deception: A refusal to see things clearly

3. Self-righteousness: An end justifies the means attitude

4. Self-preservation: By any means necessary

This relates directly to the world right now. So many people behave as if they are the only ones on the planet and their attitudes adjust accordingly. MY convenience. MY way or the highway. MY comfort. This attitude of “me me me” makes people angry because we all want convenience, our way, and comfort. Trying to impose one individual’s will leads to violence when many individuals are all trying to impose their own will at the same time. 
Our actions affect the people around us, like it or not. This is why we no longer have a civil society. To live in a civil society, we have to accept that we are part of a larger whole. When we create a society where everyone is right and no one is wrong, we descend into chaos because there is no baseline for acceptable behavior. We have rules for our online communities yet we seem to have suspended the rules of civil society. 

I’m here to say it doesn’t have to be this way. We have the power of choice. We can choose kindness. We can choose to be open-minded. We can choose to listen. We can choose to be considerate. Most importantly, we can choose to consider the impact of our actions on others. 

And that brings me to my Birthday Playlist. (Yes, my birthday is this week!). Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the song, “What the world needs now is love” and that got me thinking about other songs that inspire us to be better to each other. I’m sharing this here in the hope that it will help us create a better mindset. If we change our mind, we can change the world. 

Cecilia’s 2025 Birthday Playlist:

1. Running on Faith: performed by Eric Clapton

2. What the World Needs Now is Love: performed by Jackie DeShannon

3. One: performed by Bono and U2

4. The Best of Times: performed by Styx

5. Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: performed by Fleetwood Mac

6. Walking in the Sun: performed by The Zombies

7. Be Optimistic: performed by Shirley Temple

8. Here Comes the Sun: performed by the Beatles

9. Imagine: performed by John Lennon

10. Give Peace a Chance: performed by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band

11. Cecilia: performed by Simon & Garfunkel (well, it is my Birthday after all 😉

Enjoy the playlist here.