Luzzem Gayne (Blooging from A to Z Challenge)

Luzzem gayne.

Please excuse my transliteration skills but roughly translated, luzzem gayne is Yiddish for “Let them/him/her/it go”.

I think it might be possible that if we all practiced the idea of luzzem gayne – in actions and thoughts –  the world might be a little gentler place. For example, you get cut off in traffic and the instinct is to maybe give that lousy driver the finger, or maybe speed up and cut them off in retaliation. Slow down. Relax. Luzzem gayne. Let them go.

I’m not saying that we should forget the self-respect and empowerment that 40 years of assertiveness awareness has taught us, only that we use that self-love and awareness compassionately and with purpose and meaning.

Something, anything, happens and we become upset and we ask ourselves if we’ll still be upset in 15 minutes and if the answer is yes then we say something. But if the answer is no, then luzzem gayne.

The idea of luzzem gayne isn’t new. It was practiced by Native Americans back in the mid-1800’s to settlers moving west as seen at the 42-second mark of this piece of historical footage.