WWMRD: What Would Mr. Rogers Do?

In the last year, I've struggled with work, and research, and finding financial security, and all sorts of complicated things that come with being a responsible adult. Most of the time, this has resulted in me feeling like this:

"I'm not hyperventilating...the Earth's oxygen must've run out!"

When I have asked friends and family for advice, they've been wonderful.  I get support, letters, even a wonderful care package from time to time.  Truly, I am fortunate to have the support structure I do in my life. I daily reflect on the pure and unadulterated awesomeness that are my family and friends.

Basically, "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

On rare occasions, though, people try to help me and end up actually making things worse. For example, when I received a supportive text message from an old college buddy.  I was having an especially rough week, and he tried to cheer me up with the following:
"Hey bro hope all is good wit u just remember you are a sinner and can chose to be redeem from hell if you wanna. WWJD?"

This left me, as you might imagine, somewhat confused. I mean, my friend meant well! But...his support was both unhelpful and actually broke my concentration worse than stress of being busy ever would. There's not a whole lot I can criticize in his intentions, except for the part where his idea of a supportive text message to a relatively open and outspoken atheist is to remind me that apparently I'm sinful in the eyes of his God, and somehow the only way to show support is poor grammar, bad spelling, and pushing what I consider one of the worst belief systems in religion on me.  I mean, in a religion with messages like 'Love conquers all' and the Golden Rule, he decided to send me the 'You belong in hell and are inherently sinful' message as a show of support.

This is my 'What the hell?' face.

When I'm saying, "I am having a hard time handling my workload" and "I am feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilities and frustrations of my job" there's pretty much nothing on Earth I would like to avoid more than being told "You're a sinner".  And maybe most irritating of all, it ended with WWJD, which somehow he thought would be a useful question to ask when struggling with chemical analyses.

What would Jesus do? First, I'm neither attractive or thin enough to pose with my shirt off as most iconography shows Jesus doing.  I wouldn't look majestic and deific, I'd look overweight and hairy, which MANY women I've met in the last years have informed me isn't really "in-fashion" this season. Secondly, I'm nearly certain nobody living 2000 years ago would be able to help clarify what I should be doing as a modern scientific researcher.  I mean, "What would Jesus do?"  Probably pass out in shock at the modern technology.  Maybe cry a little. If I were in his shoes and shot forward 2,000+ years and saw the technology, I'd probably piss myself and pass out, so maybe he'd do that.  Or go around preaching to people. Literally none of that is helpful.

I didn't respond to the text message, and I didn't correct my friend about sending incredibly unhelpful support, I just let it go.  One of the common complaints about atheists and agnostics is that they can be obnoxious and force their beliefs into conversation, so I made a conscious choice to just appreciate the intent, even if the action was poorly thought out.

But as that day progressed I found myself repeatedly thinking about what a better person to suggest as a guide for life.  Who would be better for me to emulate?  Who could I try to live up to?  I needed to find someone to emulate whose actions and beliefs are useful in almost any situation.  I needed to find someone who never seems/seemed overwhelmed.  I needed someone with passion but stability, a strong work ethic but who still recognized the value of fun, and someone who I personally look up to.  Though the list of potential people was surprisingly long (for example, the amazingly crazy musician and inspirational speaker Andrew W.K. was on the short list for my new personal Jesus-figure) it came down to one person very quickly.

Mr. 'proof-of-the-existence-of-true-and-loving-goodness-in-the-world' Fred Rogers.

Seriously, Catholic Church, we've got another saint ready for processing.

If you don't know much about him, just know that he was AMAZING.  Check out the following video for more reasons to love ol' Fred. Video courtesy of the awesome "Mental Floss" youtube channel.




And with the decision to try to emulate that incredible man came an almost immediate change in my behavior:
-That same afternoon, I thought, "What would Mr. Rogers do?" and chose to call my grandma and told her I loved her just because, instead of taking a nap like I was tempted to do.
-An hour later, when I felt like I'd hit a wall on my research progress, I took a deep breath and put on cheerful music, instead of giving up and going home to nap, which never stopped being the thing I WANTED to do. 
-That evening, I took a nice walk through the woods, instead of playing video games or watching netflix.

It was incredible.  Asking myself WWJD resulted in questions about the response someone born 2000+ years ago would give to modern technology, a pointless and unhelpful question.  But asking myself WWMRD resulted in me taking better care of myself, feeling better about work, and showing my friends and family that I appreciate them.

As a result, I've concluded that from this day forth, when asking myself what I should do next, I won't think about religion, or ancient cultures.  No, I instead will ask myself, "What would Mr. Rogers do?"

I imagine that right now, he'd say to end with the positive and loving statement of:
Thanks for reading.  I hope you have a wonderful day. I really do appreciate you taking the time to read what I have to say, and the interest you have shown in this blog and all my other endeavors.  And as always,

-Brian, the Author Guy.

 PS, check out the following amazing videos of this awesome man if you want to have perhaps the best day ever and be inspired towards greatness.A video of Mr. Rogers talking to the US Senate, in which he incontrovertibly proves his awesomeness.
Mr. Rogers' 1997 Emmy acceptance speech
A wonderful musical remix of Mr. Rogers, made by PBS!