President Abraham Lincoln who struggled with his depression held together the opposites of darkness and light in his own psyche as well as his country at his time.
At a special prayer day he had asked the troops of the north to pray also for the south troops. To his critics who felt that this is undermining the moral of the troops he said:
“We need to be able to remain human even though we are fighting this war.”
There was one of Lincoln’s very rare outbursts of anger in ‘Soldiers Home’, a cottage in the country on a high hill, where Lincoln ruminated on emancipation proclamations and more.
An officer came to him in need as his wife had drowned in a ferry boat in the Potomac River. Lincoln reacted infuriated due to the disturbance:
“Why do you bring that up to me?
Go have someone else in the White House deal with it!”
Following night Lincoln could not sleep all night. He sat up that night and recognized his mistake. The next morning he took care to find the hotel where the officer stayed in. He knocked at the door and apologized to the man assuring him:
“We will find your wife!”
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Don’t “act like a man.” Break free of the “man box.”
Tony Porter’s call to all men
