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Big Picture – Fear or Hope?

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”

~~~Albert Einstein

Today’s post will probably get me in a whole lot of trouble. I hope it doesn’t, but there’s a good chance it will. This is being written on the morning of the seventh anniversary of the disaster that is now called by two numbers — 9/11. To this day I still honor and weep for those who lost so much as a result of the horror that was perpetrated on this country by the terrorists known as Al Qaeda. The act committed on 9-11-01 by those terrorists was an act of outright murder of over 3,000 innocent people.

What’s going to get me into trouble with this post is my take on what our country has done about 9/11. We have become a country so focused on fighting terrorism that we’ve brought ourselves to the brink of disaster. In my honest opinion, we messed up. Sure, because of 9/11 there were new precautions needed, and we instituted them. There were new barriers needed, and we put them in place. Those are all good things and they were necessary. What bothers me is that 9/11 made us forget about the values our country was founded on. Thanks to poor information, whether it came from the Pentagon or it came from the White House, the information was such that we made some very serious mistakes. Those mistakes have cost us dearly. Our mistakes have put our country completely out of balance, not only here at home, but in the world as well.

Throughout these past several articles focusing on the Big Picture, I’ve been ranting about how our political and corporate leaders have been feeding us the rhetoric of the worst of what we are and can be. We’ve been fed the message of fear over and over again. We’ve not only convinced ourselves that we’re brutal and greedy, we’ve convinced the rest of the world as well. We’ve also convinced the world that we’re not very smart.

It’s not that we didn’t have enemies on 9-11-01, we did. We still have them today and we’ll still have them on 9-12-08. What we did do is we created a new enemy that day — ourselves. We allowed ourselves to be convinced that we had to resort to a new way of thinking about the world. We allowed our leaders to destroy our global brand — “Where anything is possible for anybody!” We’ve allowed ourselves to be convinced that we need to live with a motto of fear, rather than hope.

I say, “No More!”

We need to cease listening to the old stories. We need to take back our country. We need to be telling the world the story of who we truly are — of what the Big Picture really is.

We’re into the final throes of what could be the most important election cycle this country has ever known. It’s about whether we’re a 9/11 country or a 9/12 country. Whether we’re a country that operates from a place of fear or a place of hope. We need to reunite ourselves around the common purpose I’ve been discussing in these articles, rather than what we’re doing now, which is to unite ourselves around a common enemy.

Our common purpose needs to be as it always was — we are a giving and loving people who have the same hopes, dreams and desires as the majority of people in the world. We need to keep our common purpose in mind as we make decisions about who our next leaders should be. Do we want leaders who will continue to focus on fear, greed, violence and distortions as our purpose, or do we want leaders who will be focused on who we are and what we stand for in the world.

Fear or hope?

Thankfully, you still have the choice in our country. For me, I’m going to choose hope because I believe the other choice will lead to a disaster from which we won’t be able to recover. I believe choosing hope will give us a country led by leaders who will look forward, rather than backward. My hope is that those of you reading this blog will look forward with me and pass these message forward to your contacts and ask them to do the same.

A friend of mine who lives in the United Kingdom passed along an article about how the rest of the world feels about our coming election. It’s in the BBC news of September 10, 2008, and the title of the article is, “Obama Win Preferred in World Poll”. Yes, outside our own country the people of the rest of the world favor the candidate of hope by a four-to-one margin.

Isn’t that interesting?

Do your part and help to spread the word.

There’s more to come next week. Come back and help us to continue this important conversation. Invite your friends. We need many more people to be listening and sharing.
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“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

~~~ Buddha

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I meditate every day to help keep me sane in this crazy world we live in. Those glimpses we get of peace, love, acceptance and happiness when we’re meditating will soon grow into more than glimpses if we keep practicing. Keep those feelings alive. A meditation can be as simple as one, deep, conscious breath. When something happens in one of your moments to cause you to suffer, just stop and take one of those breaths and remember, “This too shall pass!” Another thing that is wonderful, especially at certain times of the year, is to have a fresh flower where you work. Just stop from time-to-time and look at it — don’t label it — don’t judge it — just be with it for a couple of moments. It really does work. I’m looking at mine as I write this.

“Each flower is a soul blossoming out to nature”

~~~ Gerard de Nerva

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“Those who really seek the path to Enlightenment dictate terms to their mind. Then they proceed with strong determination.”

~~~ Buddha

Namaste!

I share these words for you in closing — remember these words …

“Be happy now, my dear friends. Today is all we have. Be good to one another. Take comfort in whatever spirituality you are so inclined (or not), and learn to be happy despite your circumstances. Follow your path; pursue your dreams. Work hard, love your family be generous and forgiving. Do it today, while you still have the flicker of life, for one day your own candle will dim.”

You are special — and you are loved. You are the greatest gift you can be.

Shanti … (A sanscrit word meaning, “Let there be Peace. Peace, beautiful Peace. Peace within, Peace without. Peace in this world. Peace for all beings.”)

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

~~~ Buddha

~~~ Ron
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