Why Now

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca  (Roman Statesman 5 BC - 65 AD)

February 7, 2021 to November 22, 2022 is a culmination of 653 days.  There is nothing particularly significant about that number.  Although in some quarters of belief, the number 653 signifies a time for people to begin listening to each other. It is telling us to treat people nicely.  And while working with others, not to be the kind of person who throws words that can hurt and are irreversible. 

Call it just my mind giving me a nudge to write something.  Maybe it was the recent mid-term elections, or a potential slide back to reason by the electorate or possibly the warnings signs of retribution that some have already expressed in political quarters.

The use of social media has greatly influenced or given rise to the loudest of the extreme left and right.  In doing so, it has created a bit of laziness in the rest of us.  If I lean left or lean right, it is much too easy to give into the noise created by the much further left or right.  The result is a widening of our ability to have reasonable conversations with each other.  It results in yelling, in exaggerating, or mean-spirited vitriol and further division.

The other trend is the lock social media has on us as adults, on our children and on our attention spans.  Look around the room to see how many are looking at their phone while sitting next to others at dinner or watching a show on television; streaming a show to be more exact.  How many kids are on their tablet in the same fashion many of us were sitting in front of a television watching Captain Kangaroo?

Maybe you have noticed while watching a show the trend to even shorter (although same number of) commercials. The fifteen second "Tik-Tok-Twitter-ish" length because our attention spans are decreasing.   See how we watch and get hooked on the increasingly non-meaningful, cult of celebrity, or "somebody-did-somebody-wrong" social media posts.  

What are we doing to ourselves?

I do feel there are many good things we can take from the internet, social media and our age of information. It can be a great tool for learning, with access to an expansive amount of information.  It gives us access to thousands of libraries filled with books, thousands of museums filled with art and history, and so much more.

But it does require we work at it.  

When I read people getting worked up over what books, history or other information is being taught, my thought is that yes, there should be diversity in our books and our history and our art.  Which means it requires work to explore both sides of an issue or lesson.  

Yet the same folks will become very single minded in their choice of social media input, hearing only one side, not working to try and view both sides of an issue or lesson. Don't block or quit following; listen and try to understand. The easy way for most is to ban the book, exclude the history or listen to the noisiest on the internet.

And where does all of this lead us?  Where does it lead me?  

It takes me down a path of trying to at least understand both sides, to listen more and listen longer before deciding.  For us, my hope is that we begin to narrow the gaping hole in our conversations.  

The impact of Covid-19 had many different types of results, but it also made it easier for us to pull away from each other.  It created the conditions perfect for impersonal connection of social media.  The term social media almost seems like an oxymoron as it does not feel very social.  It gave us the "person behind the steering wheel in traffic" another outlet to express their self perfection and rage.

Yes, it was a perfect storm of possibilities that helped create our divide, but a perfect storm of intent on our part can help narrow that divide.   If we step back a moment, maybe put the smart device down, a new bridge will begin to develop between each other. 

Stay inspired my friends!

Keep Talking

The roar and the rhetoric of postings so loud,

It entered our year with full force, some were proud.

Glass it was broken and marble floors were disturbed,

And yet there were heroes trying to hold back the herd.

It passed and we finished, the counting was done,

More will be written of how democracy had won.

The truth will be found as more is understood,

We will hopefully take solace in those who did good.

Now the tweets and the posts fall silent to listening,

With less being shouted, that silence is deafening.

Can we turn the distance of shouting at each other,

Into ground we can share our country together.

Lay down all the guns of social media chatter,

Be willing to talk and share opinion that matters.

We learned how to talk then failed how to listen,

But now is the chance, a new way can be christened.

Stay inspired my friends!

Into 2021 We Go

Gregorian calendar says we are ending the year of 2020 tonight,
And overnight we enter 2021,
All with the same hope and excitement that a new year brings. 

The past year of 2020 challenged everyone in many different ways,

And it would be easy to dismiss,

A year deemed bad or maybe even a year to forget. 

We should not so easily turn our backs on this most challenging year,

Even as many endured so much,

Health, family or simply the impact of our isolation.

Each of us would have good reasons to curse the year,

One that was meant,

A year we thought, would be a turning point of greatness.

It was a year the futurists and prophets of positivity had said,

This year would bring,

But life determines how life itself is going to unfold.

I would rather look back on 2020 and view the challenges,

As growth, of changing perspective,

To view 2020 for the good things happened as well.

The year brought me off the road to spend more time with family,

To find new ways to connect,

To listen to people and to cherish more important things in life.

The year gave all of us celebrations, births, birthdays, accomplishment.

There was more of people talking, 

Sometimes angrily but talking is a way to start resolving differences.

We adapted and created ways to accomplish in spite of,

COVID isolation, social injustice, and pain,

Even as all of this occurred we moved forward, we did it together.

We did all of this working with each other, leaning on each other,

Trusting each other.

By sharing our human experience with each other to push through.

Now 2021, new year, new hopes, goals, dreams and opportunity,

Yet the year is but a number.

And we make of that number, the year, what we want of it.

Life will create what it does for us in the coming days and months.

There will be challenges just like in 2020,

But there will be opportunity, there will be joy, there will be success. 

As is customary, I wish the best for each of you in the new year.

I wish so much,

Health, happiness, love and peace to you, your families, your friends.

Most of all I wish for each of you to find greatness in yourself.  

To know you are great,

And to be happy in yourself with what you have and in what you do.

If you can find that, you can overcome anything.

Life really is great.

Let that be your wish, your goal, your success in 2021.

Stay inspired my friends! 

Another Year To Remember

We started the year full of hope and promise,

We do so each year, a given, written in sonnets.

With joy we entered the year of 2020,

With increasing pain and disaster aplenty.

We wondered what hit us as March it came clear,

We sorted exaggeration and dealt with our fear.

With adjustments some wore masks to limit the spread,

With others their freedoms meant more than the dead.

We asked then deflected to others as the source,

We said no not us, was them, the fervor and force.

With so many deaths does not fully matter,

With focus we changed and wrote a new chapter.

We made it this far, a new year approaching,

We come to it wishing with hope ever promising.

With leaving 2020 and entering 2021,

With much more to do, our lives will move on.

Stay inspired my friends!