WELCOME to the New Year!! We at What Are We Fighting For hope you had a very Merry Christmas.
Let's start this New Year with a new attitude; one of common sense, service, sacrifice and citizenship. How do we do that? Here are some hints that will help you to determine your political and personal fortunes and futures this year.
Politically:
1. Here's a twist - stop listening to what politicians are telling you what they are going to do - look at what they have done. Rarely do people have significant and sustained changes in their behavior after the age of 25 without some dramatic intervening incident in their lives.
2. Exercise your citizenship - register to vote and when there is an election at the local, state or national level - VOTE!
3. When you are going to the polls to cast your ballot disregard the majority of what you have read or heard during the campaigns. Instead refer back to #1 and realize that party lines, political agendas, polls and propaganda are designed to seduce you into a certain form of thinking. Think for yourself but use evidence and past behaviors of candidates to form your opinions.
4. Serve - service can be to your church, community, schools or nation. The method is not important, what is important is that you use this opportunity to help others. NOTE: This does not mean to ENABLE but to help. People stuck in a pathological approach to life WILL remain in their pathology up to and until something of such a great significance occurs to FORCE them to address their choices and behaviors.
5. Sacrifice - time, money and energy are the measures of your sacrifice. Sympathy and empathy are simply blankets that we wrap ourselves in to experience the nature of the moment. Act! Vince Lombardi once said, "Do something, even if it's wrong!"
6. Use your common sense - one of the indicators of mental illness is "If you do the same thing, the same way again and again and again and again and expect it to turn out differently - you have a problem." Common sense in this country has given way to political correctness. Our governmental agencies at all levels operate from a Utopian view point. Your household operates from a point of either financial responsibility or financial irresponsibility. Which do you want to use?
7. Be prepared - so often in the past few months rumors of economic ruin, social sabotage and even rebellion against oppression have been discussed by call-ins to the radio shows Col Bond and I have participated in. Remember Katrina? You can't evacuate a major metropolitan area. Remember the ice storms, fires in California, tornados, floods and hurricanes of last year? Be prepared to protect your family and participate in their survival. It takes hours or days for the Red Cross to respond with food, water and shelter; days or weeks to restore services; and during this time the criminal element wants what you have.
8. Practice being unreasonable - stand up for what you believe in. Find others that believe as you do. Don't accept this gradual but "inevitable" slide into a future and a country you won't recognize. It can be changed but it can only be changed by action, dedication, service, sacrifice and citizenship.
9. Value your family - and let them know they are valued. Do right things, even when they are hard. Teach your children strong values and encourage them to do those right things, not the politically correct things.
10. Remember God! Remember him; protect his presence in our country, in our government, in our business but most importantly in our families and our hearts.
This month starts the rest of your life; Tim McGraw has a great song out called "Live like you were dying." The message is that someone had a wake-up call and began living his life instead of just focusing on making a living. He went "ski-diving, rocky mountain climbing and did 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu." The last few lines go like this:
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'
Like tomorrow was the end
And ya got eternity to think about what to do with it
What should you do with it?
What can I do with it?
What would I do with it?
My question is what will you do with it?
For the personal side I provide these words to live by from author Kurt Vonnegut's MIT Graduation Speech a while back:
Ladies and gentlemen:
Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4:00 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you. Sing. Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss. Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch. Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40; maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary.
Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's. Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on to.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children
respected their elders.
Respect your elders. Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth. But trust me on the sunscreen.
Happy New Year,
Bob
