It rained the whole of today

Was reading a blog entry about thermometer and thermostat.

I was struck by the first sentence - "If you don't stand for something, you fall for anything".

Then it asks, "Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?"

So which?

Are you a thermometer that can only react to what surrounds you. Always reflecting what is in your environment, never having any opportunity to influence. You have a purpose and it's always secondary and a direct response to those around you.

Or are you a thermostat? You decide what it should be like for those within a determined space, influencing directly on factors that will affect those occupying the same space as yourself. Your purpose is driven by your own desired standards and everybody around you is secondary.

I wonder if everybody in the world can be divided into thermometers and thermostats. It's rather limiting. Something definitive like gender cannot divide the world up accurately, the human population is not merely male or female. And really, the world is a better place with both available, thermometers and thermostats.

While we aspire to leave our past behind and envision a better future for ourselves, sometimes it takes nothing for the past to catch up with us.