Dire News Indeed
I don’t know about the rest of you, but the news media has gotten to me lately. I am buying into the Armageddon mentality. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that we are in for a rough ride, but after watching a couple of news reports, I expect to see thousands of homeless people wandering the streets of Belmont like zombies from Dawn of the Dead . They are all in black and white, like old films showing bread lines from the Great Depression. I am surprised when I look outside to see that the sun is shining, birds are singing, people are driving around and there are still lines at Starbucks where people are ordering their Pumpkin Spice Lattes. In short the earth is still revolving around the sun. IT’S A MIRACLE!
Yesterday, I recognized that it was time to regain my personal equilibrium – AGAIN – and anyway I needed more pictures for this Blog. Time for a bike ride and a head clearing – time to see that people are going about their business and to contemplate how well we still have it in the good ol’ USA. Time to think about FEAR. A wise man once told me that you cannot be affected by anything outside of yourself that you do not have within yourself. This means to me that the fear coming through the tube would not impact me if I was not fearful myself.
Do what the sign says, man
As I came to this sign along the path, it occurred to me that stop was the exact word I was looking for. Sometimes you just have to STOP in your tracks, look around and choose a different direction.
So what am I afraid of?
It turns out there are lots of things, some petty and some catastrophic. What did they all have in common? None of them are real in this moment. They are all things that MIGHT HAPPEN. I am afraid of hypothetical events. This has to be the definition of insanity. So once again I have slipped into being a crazy person. GREAT!
There are two kinds of fear:
- RATIONAL FEAR: The kind when you are afraid because someone is holding a gun to your head or a car is headed straight for you or a lion is charging (and you’re not at the Zoo). This is rational fear, the non-crazy person kind of fear. It is what fear is all about, protecting us from actual dangers.
- IRRATIONAL FEAR: The kind when you are afraid because someone might react badly to something you are thinking about saying or you might lose your job if the economy gets worse even though right now you have a pretty secure job or you might get cancer some day even though you are totally healthy right now. This is the irrational, crazy person kind of fear. This is the kind of fear that I have been experiencing for as long as I can remember.
Once again recognizing that the fear that I am feeling is not based on what is happening NOW but rather on what MIGHT happen IN THE FUTURE, helped me to snap out of it. But what will happen the next time I watch the news? Maybe I should cancel FIOS? The Red Sox are playing post-season ball. It is football season. Dog Whisperer and Dirty Jobs are on all the time. There’s no way that I’m canceling FIOS.
But, what will I do when all the doom and gloom comes out of the screen, when the media tells me the latest thing that I should be afraid of?
I need to remember to focus on what is really happening and refuse to buy into being afraid just because the talking heads on my television tell me that “EVERYONE is AFRAID and you should be too! And here’s why…” This will be my good deed for the day: for myself and for everyone around me, I will be in the present moment where there is nothing to fear – except wild animals and Massachusetts drivers!
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