There are a couple of things I want to talk about today. The first is self-help/political and the second is personal.

First:

If there is one thing that is consistent through all of the self-help, self-improvement courses, articles, and books I have gone through is it that you can't grow if you are in a state of fear. Fear keeps you from growing and prevents self awareness, empathy toward others, and even love. Right now I, and probably everyone else in the USA, is being bombarded with political ads. It doesn't matter who is sending them out, Democrats, Republicans, or even some of the Independents,  they all use the same tactic. Fear. There is fear of the other party gaining control of congress, fear of terrorists, fear of job loss, climate change, environmental disaster, the list goes on.

The fact that many political ads are false, or exaggerations, or misleading about the cause of their fear, is unimportant, as is who is making and promoting those ads. What seems important to me is the idea that so much fear is being fed to the public that it makes it almost impossible for anyone to think clearly, to think about helping their fellow citizens, to think about community responsibility, to think about anything other than protecting themselves. Compassion has flown out the window to be replaced with a core belief of 'it's us versus them' whoever "us" or "them" might be. This is not how a country should grow.

I don't have any solutions other than to try to increase awareness of how we are being manipulated, so each person can let go of their own fears.


Second:

Okay, this is totally unrelated to the first thought. The past few nights I have had difficulty sleeping, which has dragged me down during the day. Various things that have occurred have given me some anxiety, and I have had some difficulty not giving in to fear, but seeing these things as problems with solutions.

With the lack of sleep, I've been lethargic during the day which probably contributed to the following night's poor sleep. I wake up feeling like my lower legs are wrapped in weights and end the day with pains running from my hip to my knee - only on one side, thankfully. Well, yesterday I got home from work and looked at the meadow my backyard was becoming and decided that as I had the next day off from my job I would get the sticks and such picked up so I could mow as soon as it got light. Well, after getting the bits I could see picked up I looked around the yard and thought about how much light was left, and pulled out my trusty mower and began pushing it around the yard. I didn't get the whole yard completed, but the meadow I was ignoring in my effort to keep the street side under control, is now completed. It was amazing how much better I felt after the exercise as well.

AND I HAD A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP!!

Let's see what today brings.

PS. If anyone knows the source of the image I used, please let me know so it can be properly credited.