We live amongst riddles and mysteries. Do good, O LORD, to those who are good, to those who are upright in heart. However, those who turn to crooked ways, the LORD will banish with the evildoers. Peace be upon the World. A person’s values and ability to tolerate distress and uncertainty can play a role in whether that individual can be manipulated. In certain circumstances, people who are normally fundamentally good can commit thoughtless or even cruel acts. For example, when people are influenced by an authority figure, they are more likely to commit an act that goes against their moral values than they would otherwise be. After someone makes a decision that goes against his or her moral values, that person may experience emotional discomfort and distress. To ease these feelings, the person may adjust his or her beliefs. To reduce his own distress about going against his values, his cognitive dissonance over the discrepancy between moral values and immoral actions, some try to rationalize their actions. However, mysteries which must explain themselves are not worth the loss of time which a conjecture about them takes up.   

After the birth of his son, a Vietnam veteran, working as a Registered Nurse was frazzled, explosive, and on edge, but he had no idea that these problems had anything to do with what he had experiences in Vietnam. After all, the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis was relatively new, and as a working-class guy, he did not consult shrinks. His nightmares and insomnia subsided a bit after he left nursing and enrolled in a seminary to become a minister. He did not seek help until his son’s crying triggered unrelenting flashbacks, in which he saw, heard, and smelled burned and mutilated children in Vietnam. He was so out of control that some wanted to put him in the hospital to treat what they thought was a psychosis. However, as he started working with a good mental health professional, he began to feel safe and slowly started to tolerate his feelings without becoming overwhelmed. This helped him to refocus on taking care of his family and on finishing his training as a minister. After two years, he was a pastor with his own parish, and he felt that his work was leading him in the right direction.  

Holding on to one’s values is essential to controlling one’s emotions and other, baser instincts. Seventeen years to the day after the birth of his son, he was experiencing exactly the same symptoms—flashbacks, terrible nightmares, feelings that he was losing his mind. After Bob was able to deal with the specific memories of what he had seen, heard, and smelled back in Vietnam, details that he had been too scared to recall were now being integrated so that they became stories of what happened long ago, instead of instant transports into the hell of Vietnam. Once he felt more settled, he wanted to deal with his childhood: his brutal upbringing on the mean streets of Beverly Hills, and his guilt of having left behind his younger schizophrenic brother when he enlisted for Vietnam. Bob confronted as a minister—having to bury adolescents killed in car crashes only a few years after he had baptized them or having couples he had married come back in crisis over domestic violence. Bob went on to organize a support group for fellow clergy faces with similar traumas, and he became an important force in his community.  

Bob started to experience serious neurological illnesses at the age of forty-two. He had suddenly started to experience episodic paralysis in several parts of his body, and he was beginning to accept that he would probably spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He thought his problems might be due to multiple sclerosis, but his neurologist could not find specific lesions, and they said that there was no cure for his condition. Given his grim prognosis, Bob started receiving letters of love, support, and encouragement from his son. He felt that these letters were helping him alleviate the distressing feelings he was experiencing in his body, just as he learned to tolerate and live with his most painful memories of the war. He started spending time with his son, they would walk miles at the park every day, and this was rearranging physical sensations and muscle movements. Bob expressed delight with his increased sense of control. He enjoyed being around his son who was young and energetic.   

Bob loved being at the park with his son, even though parts of his body occasionally gave way and he would have to rest for days or weeks at a time. Despite his physical limitations, people would see Bob trotting around the park and looking healthy and happy, he gained a sense of bodily pleasure and mastery that he had never felt before. Bob’s psychological and physical exercise treatment had helped him put the horrendous experience of Vietnam in the past. Now befriending his body was keeping him from organizing his life around the loss of physical control. He still regularly suffers from weakness in his limbs that requires him to sir or lay down. However, like his memories of childhood and Vietnam, these episodes do not dominate his existence. They are simply the ongoing, evolving story of his life. Bob, by continuously connecting with his values, staying true to his identity, and being mindful of his emotions, is able to say no and withstand the dark side’s influence. His example awakens a similar value in his son, who helps bring his dark father back to the light. When you know what your values are, it is not hard to make a decision.