Cold Heart

To me there are few things worse than a cold heart in another.  I do like what Thomas Campbell rhymed, “The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone, that never mused on sorrow but its own.”  Someone doing something just to pay the bills is not evidence of a warm heart.  It is evidence of self-interest.
I can try to disguise coldness, but it is generally to no avail, and my eyes give me away.  I am amazed at the number of times I hear of someone getting a job based on their being able to look their employer in the eye.  To me, that is a heart thing.
So often these days it seems I hear about the negative consequences of a cold heart.  I am shocked, and I do not like it, but I cannot say I am surprised.  Medicine does not always taste good, but it does me good.  If I discard it, I need to live with the outcome and that is not always pleasant.
I hear of governments declaring the need to spend more money.  That is good and I will never think it is not money well spent, but it seems spending all the money in the world will not warm a heart.   It will definitely make it more comfortable, but it will not change it.
But the opposite of a cold heart is a warm one.  I love what Arnold Glasow said, “Every great accomplishment is the story of a flaming heart.”  I often hear that someone’s “heart was in it.”  To me it has to be for anything worthwhile to be achieved.  It seems accomplishments were achieved by those with cold hearts too but the consequences for many was not important to the perpetrator.  I hear Campbells words again “The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone, that never mused on sorrow but its own.”
Yet so many great things have been achieved by warm hearts.  Hearts that were not just looking out for themselves but saw what good could be achieved for many.  Advances in medicine have been like that.  Like the guy that deliberately gave himself an ulcer because he believed so much in his treatment.  Artificial limbs have improved the plight of many.
It seems to me when passion is added to a warm heart, great things can be achieved.    Passion seems to take it to another dimension.  It is taking something that is to be done and moulding it into something that can be done for more.
My passion will probably never see me invent something that makes things better for the whole world.  Yet my passion born of a warm heart can positively affect those in my corner of the world.  An outcome I am happy to see achieved.  As Riley Smith said “I go home to Iowa. I call it defrosting my heart…even if it's 20 below and snowing, I come back with a warm heart.”  My cold heart can be made warm.  I count on it.