Bruce Hedgepeth, MD

Inventor | Humanitarian | Father

Kindle A Flame

Bruce Hedgepeth MD November 5, 2015

I have a friend, Julie Higgins, who started the non-profit organization I Pour Life as a way to help others reach their full potential in this world. This journey of hers has many exciting twists and turns as she has engaged her local community in Missouri, acted in El Salvador, and reached into Ethiopia. Like many ideas and intentions, her mission and assignment has morphed and grown into things that she probably really didn’t think, know, or expect. Such is life!

The particular blog post that I read early one morning is titled LiveGold: Education Empowerment and it described a project that has been put into action already and there are plans to advance it into other countries and regions. It is one in which youth are introduced to education and the empowerment that it brings to one’s self and even to those around them; the one’s that they influence now and in the future. After all, the youth of today will be the leaders of tomorrow and what tomorrow will look like is influenced by what is done today!

These are lofty goals to shoot for and to be attained for sure, and they are so necessary in places where education isn’t really a foregone conclusion and maybe not even an esteemed pursuit. While you may think that idea or plan is for overseas or third-world countries and peoples only, think again and take a look around wherever you are; or take note of what we see going on around us right here in the United States of America.

The beautiful thing is that I know that what is being said, proposed, and done is right and good. Many benefits on many levels will come from this effort. I anticipate that there will be many positive downstream stories and developments that will take place. Many of these stories haven’t even begun to be written yet and I am quite sure that there will be surprises and surprise endings aplenty.

So you ask, what were the tweets that dovetailed so nicely with this article? Well, it comes from a fly fisherman at heart who has other interests as well. I came across him because I too am a fly fisherman and his tweets caught my eye. His twitter feed is @ZZ_Troutski. How could I, as a fellow fly fisherman, not like that name and not follow him?

ZZ Troutski tweeted out two quotes that I found compelling from two very respected and reliable sources. Check them out:

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. – Socrates

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead. – Aristotle

Ponder those two statements for a while and let them sink in. They are deep and yet easily understood. By esteeming education for and by others, here and abroad, we can and will kindle a flame that will fill so many vessels that they will be too numerous to count. By educating others here and abroad, we can and will bring about life and rescue the dying.

lessons, times

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If everyone was given a chance to take to the airways and speak or write a seasonal message centered on Thanksgiving and the concept of giving thanks, I’m betting that there would be so much thankfulness, goodness, and gratefulness rushing and swirling around that we would all palpably feel it and be positively swept up and moved by it.

If we could hear it all and read it all I believe that we would be moved to think of things and remember things from our past that we have forgotten but that we are indeed thankful for as well. The fact that other people would identify and testify to the things that they are thankful for would jog our memories and that would lead us to more memories and more thankfulness, and on and on and on like a perpetual-motion giving-thanks or thanks-giving machine.

There would be remembrances of sights and sounds and smells and touches and tastes and situations and successes and failures and accomplishments and actions and laughter and tears that would evoke abundant memories about which to be thankful for. And that would just be the start.

I wonder what it would do to our collective inner being to be so thankful for all that we have and in fact for the many things that we don’t have. What would it do for the world at large? What would it do for our country, state, city, community, neighborhood, friends and family? What would it do for you and those around you? Drilling down even further, what would it do to and for me personally as a singular individual? On all accounts, I’m quite positive that it would be a very good thing.

So as the song goes “let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me,” so too, let there be thankfulness, thanksgiving, and giving of thanks more abundantly than ever before. And let it begin with me.

May your Thanksgiving be ever and forever, and ever more endless.

Walking For A Reason

Bruce Hedgepeth MD October 1, 2015

There are so many permutations and combinations of reasons, scenarios, and circumstances that go into each walk that we take. Infinite multiplied by infinite still equals infinite; and literally there are an infinite number of determinants of what goes into a walk, why one goes for a walk, and what we say and see while on that walk. There might be some repetition, routine, and order to the walk, but the reasons and possibilities remains endless — and timeless too…

Moving In

Bruce Hedgepeth MD September 24, 2015

Getting a child to their freshman year of college for their initial move-in experience and getting them ready for the first day of their first year can be nerve-wracking, stressful, traumatic, and full of angst — and that’s just for the parents!

Kindle A Flame

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