Bad economy, poor healthcare, gulf oil spill, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, cats and dogs living in sin together, what else can happen? We haven't had a good plague in a while. Oh wait, what about H1N1. I just read they had to dump millions of dollars of the vaccine because it had expired. What happens now if we have an outbreak? What about the stock market, my future, my kids and their futures? What will I do? What will I do?
No doubt these are trying times to say the least. Makes a person want to just throw up their hands and catch the next flight to an uninhabited island. I know the thought has crossed my mind a time or two recently. Everything we've worked for seems to be crumpling before our eyes. A lot of our problems are because of the greed of a few. So what's a person to do to stay sane and not want to go out in a blaze of glory?
KANSAS CITY
Before you make a trip to Wal-Mart to buy an assault weapon, take a moment and read on. Like you I'm very frustrated but I do feel there is hope. I also feel strongly that the hope starts with us as individuals not with our leaders. Let's face it they aren't getting it. They use fear to gain control and that's how we can stop the craziness, by not buying into it.
This old earth has had trying times in the past. I'm sure that local people in Europe lost hope when Rome invaded. Surely people lost hope during the Dark Ages and the plagues. If you look closely at history you will find that we don't have so bad after all. Think of what it must have been like to live in China under Mao or in Russia under Khrushchev, or for that matter Germany under Hitler. When you look at things that way we have it pretty good, we're just hitting a rough patch, having some growing pains. That could be a good thing if we don't lose hope and learn from our mistakes.
So what do I mean, "hope". Hope, in my opinion, is just the use of positive thinking. You change your energy from looking at all the bad things and start looking at all the good things in your life. When you focus on what's going right and ignore the bad you begin to attract the good to yourself. I don't understand all the in's and out's of how it works but it does. Once you shift from the glass being half empty to it being half full something magical begins to happen. Life seems a lot easier to cope with.
Now I'm not advocating that we all become Pollyanna's and become blinded to the bad that is all around us. That's just plain stupid. We need to be aware so we can make wise business and life decisions. Yet we can begin to look at life for the good it gives us and become centered on that. I know that's my goal.
I also find comfort in the Serenity Prayer that is recited at AA meetings around the world. There's a lot of wisdom in it for all of us whether we are sober or not. I'll leave you with its wise words:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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