Crossing the Bridges: Optimism for the Future
I’m not feeling it today.
I have attempted more than once to start this post, and every single start has stumbled. I get maybe an intro paragraph, and then can’t go forward.
Why am I not feeling it today?
Because I have gotten too caught up in outside influences. Because the madness of the world around me is interfering with my own thoughts and feelings, and I can neither shut it out nor replace it with something more useful, something that will feel better.
I cannot deny that the President-elect frightens me. He doesn’t think before he tweets, and if he does that makes this situation even scarier. His followers accept only what he provides them as truth, despite all empirical evidence that he is one of the biggest liars in the history of liars. We are stepping into more uncertainty in regards to our safety, our security, and our individual freedoms than we have faced in something like fifty or sixty years.
I am attempting to do the things I can do to have any effect on this situation to maintain stability, to help those who are in more danger of persecution than I am, and to keep calm and soldier on day to day.
Because I am aware that consciousness creates reality, I need to work harder than I am to not let the fear take ahold of me. I know this, I feel this…and yet I am having a particularly difficult time with this.
Now the President-elect has rekindled an old childhood fear. He’s not just sabre rattling, he’s threatening to restart the nuclear arms race. After decades of de-escalation, he wants to go back to the 1980’s and begin the madness all over again.
I was one of those sensitive children who was more afraid of nuclear war than any unseen boogey-man. Growing up in the Midwest like I did, the sirens going off signaled either a tornado, or the warheads flying…and both evoked primal fear in me well into my twenties.
I know that if I fall prey to this, I might as well give in. I might as well stop writing about taking ahold of my own destiny and living a life I most desire to live, because if I let this dictate how I am going to live I might as well quit. If I let this fear overwhelm me and dictate my actions going forward, I become everything I do not want to be.
I have many things I still want to do with my life, and this is throwing me off like nothing else has in many a year. I am finding this particular outside influence to be unsettling me, and I am both scared about the uncertainty of the future and annoyed with myself for letting myself feel so victimized.
I am in control of my own life. I am in control of my own emotions. I can and I will overcome this. I will still live my life, but I will be vigilant for any actions I need to take to keep my worst fears from becoming true.
If I live letting a fear from my past effect my here-and-now, and concerns about an unwritten future dictate my actions, I am not living up to my own beliefs, my own philosophy for this life. I still think that I can do and be so very much more.
I also need to wrap my head around the belief that in being more for myself, I am not acting selfishly. In fact, by doing more for myself I will be better armed to take on any challenges that may arise along the way. The future is not yet written, and while I am concerned about what lies ahead, only in the here and now can I do any good, for myself or for anyone else, and that is something.
Today has been hard. But there are so many different bridges I want to cross. Yes, I have been feeling overwhelmed in general, but the outside situation has exacerbated it. I need to remember, and to remind myself, that I can do this. I am still in control, and I can overcome the negativity and I can get control and feel better.
We live in uncertain times, and while I am concerned, I am choosing to not let that overwhelm me. For those of you out there who are also afraid, we are in this together. I still believe that we have the power to handle this, that we can work together to overcome any insanity the President-elect spews. I am remaining vigilant, but I cannot live life believing the worst possibilities, in part because that way lies madness, and in part because I most certainly do NOT want to consciously create that reality.
Today is one day in the chain of days that make up my life. Not every day is going to be a good day, that’s not the way life works, but I can choose to let the negativity linger, or I can take some kind of action to deal with it, and to move forward.
I know I am not alone in feeling this. What I want to say to you is this – we are in this together. But we all need to turn our focus away from opposition to the insanity, and instead support something better, work to build something to overcome this. Support freedom, support peace, support ways we can work together to help those who are not feeling this fear understand, and hopefully join us in unifying rather than dividing the world.
I still believe that, deep down, we all want peace. We all want to find love. We all want to belong. The fear of change and that which is different is being used to undermine the nation, but I think that if we respond by showing them that they have nothing to fear from change and that which is different, we can do something to improve matters for everyone. Optimistic? Maybe…but the alternative is not who I am, and not the world I want to live in.
The old adage goes that it is always darkest before the dawn. This darkness is a last gasp before dawn, and the light of the dawn will be stronger than the dark overwhelming us now. I know that’s cliché, I know it’s pie-in-the-sky optimism, but I would much rather manifest something good than something bad, wouldn’t you? Thank you for crossing the bridges between my worlds with me!
This is the thirteenth entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series. My collectively published writing can be found here.
Follow me here!
