LYNNE, YOU CAN'T SAVE THE WORLD

Last week my cousin's hubby said that to me over and over. He had his arm around me, in a good cousinly sort of way, and he looked right into my eyes and said, "Lynne, you can't save the world." He said that about six or eight more times.

I wanted to ask him how you handle the sadness you know about. The friends who are toughing bad situations out, the friends that aren't going to get well, the injustice, the hurts but I didn't know how to word it. He and my cousin are toughing out their own hurts. Several situations that can't be changed, and yet they are happy.

I asked Phil about it today, telling him about one of our friends who is living through some hard situations.

"Can she do anything about it?" he asked.

"No, but..."

"If she can't do anything about it, can't change the situation, then she should stop fretting about it."

Is this how men handle things? Do they logically decide that if they can't do anything about it they let it go?

If so, maybe that's what Professor Henry Higgins said when he continually asked, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?"

And why can't we?