Time to tune a new focus on the small stuff
July 3, 2016
By: Mark Harvey
Email: harvemb@dshs.wa.gov
I’ve been on the road a lot lately – Alone – So, like the fool I truly am, I turn on the radio for “company” – Different areas, different stations.
And to further exacerbate an already exacerbated situation, I listened to “talk radio,” and Yes: both “sides.”
I guess I think it was bad enough “before,” when we were simply being assaulted by the news of this war or that war or the next (possible) war: Who’s killing who, how and ostensibly, why. Oh sure, you can throw in a little piracy, perhaps a touch of genocide and don’t forget the latest food/drug/disease/car part that will drop us all like flies – Oh, and an unnaturally “natural disaster” here and there…
But then the “economy” struck! Wall Street and bank failures and bail-outs and underwater mortgages and unchecked unemployment and deficits and rising food prices and falling gas prices and bankruptcy and debt debt debt and what’s happened to the stock market in the last 30 seconds and all kinds of talk about how bad it will be for how long and everybody is SCREAMING at somebody else about what they should have done or shouldn’t have done and the right-wing conspiracy and the left-wing conspiracy, proudly fueled by a perpetual Presidential campaign and we’d all better start hoarding peanut butter!
Wow.
By the time I got home, I was more than half depressed and more than a bit scared! WE’VE GOT TO DO…something! But we can’t do ANYTHING! Save money or pay off debt or cancel the credit cards or cancel Christmas or get a shot or DON’T get a shot or don’t get shot or…SOMETHING!
I had to be home for a while, snuggled safely in the sanity of my best friend, before I could get a breath and get a grip and get back to something resembling “normalcy;” as a result, here’s my first very serious suggestion: I suggest that we severely limit our daily intake of “news” these days, in the interests of our mental health! I’m not kidding! Fear and depression, depression and fear – Neither of those will get us anywhere that we need to be. Turn it off or watch an old “I Love Lucy” or something.
Here’s my second very serious suggestion: Go find an Elder and ask them what they think about all this; or, if you are an Elder, go find another one and talk it over, because wisdom and experience (‘been there, done that”) are the only things that will get us through this, and “Elders” are where we keep most of both.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “Here it comes: He’s going to tell us to remember all the things that we should be thankful for blah blah blah.”
No, he isn’t.
He isn’t because he figures that most of us are smart enough to figure that out…eventually.
No, he’s going to remind you of the antidote.
The antidote to this incessant, toxic end-of-the-world assault is to take in a little “good news;” and Yes, Virginia, there is “good news.”
Right now, there are sweet, innocent little kids who are excited about the 4th of July! Somebody, right here, just found a wallet and turned it in – Intact.
Somebody just squeezed $10 out of a budget that couldn’t spare it in order to give it to United Way, and somebody just helped somebody figure out Medicare.
Somebody just adopted a dog that might not have made it to next week and somebody else just turned off a stranger’s headlights so their battery wouldn’t be dead when they got out of the store.
Somebody just held a door open for somebody, and somebody else saved somebody’s life – When they didn’t have to.
Somebody just held a hand, somebody else made somebody laugh – At nobody’s expense.
Somebody just called somebody for absolutely no good reason, other than to say “Hello.”
Somebody just held somebody while they cried, and didn’t try to solve “it,” and somebody just let somebody else have the last dry shopping cart.
Somebody just said “Excuse me,” and somebody else said, “I’m sorry” – And meant it.
Somebody just loaned somebody $20, knowing damn-good-and-well that they’ll never get it back, and somebody who didn’t feel like smiling did it anyway.
Everyday, everywhere, all the time – The “small stuff.” Yeah, maybe we should “sweat the small stuff,” because maybe it’s the small stuff that allows us to survive the BIG stuff and remember why we’re alive – To hold a door open.
Do we suppose that whoever is running the Universe is sweating bullets about the New York Stock Exchange or today’s national poll?
Or am I suggesting that we ought to walk right by that pile of unpaid bills, on our way to spiritual enlightenment?
No, I’m not confused about “reality,” but I am concerned about our ability to stay sane in the face of a deafeningly perpetual rendition of “The Sky is Falling!”
Maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t.
Or maybe it just isn’t today – The day before the 4ht of July, in a beautiful place.
Maybe this is a good day to just smile at somebody, hold a door open and remember that hope is more than a diamond.
Much more.