Archive for the ‘Values’ Category

I’m like most Americans. I’ve watched both debates thus far, I’m fed up with business as usual, and I still don’t know for whom I will vote come November 4th. And as I ponder this, one other question keeps turning around in my mind.

Are these two tickets upside down?

Whether or not you agree with their politics or their policies…whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat…do you also have the feeling that Joe Biden and Sarah Palin are at least two people who say what they mean and mean what they say? Doesn’t Biden seem knowledgeable and doesn’t Palin seem real? And aren’t they each in stark contrast to their up-lines? I mean, does Obama seem knowledgeable and does McCain seem real? Or is it just me who feels that while I’d never wish harm or illness on anyone… in the event of the unthinkable…where would be the downside of either Biden or Palin rising to the office of the Presidency?

Sure, as I’ve said earlier, you may not agree with their politics or policies. But in an era of disgust with managed and staged candidates who are (in the instant Presidential case) either inexperienced or past their prime, how refreshing to listen to two bright, gutsy, V.P. candidates who aren’t afraid to wear both their intelligence and their passion on their faces and their sleeves.

As I write this entry, all of the post-debate commentators
are busy scurrying to say which one of them scored the points they
needed to score and which of them came out on top. What I don’t hear
any of them saying is that these two were more intelligent, more
interesting and more provocative in their forthrightness than either
McCain or Obama have yet to be. Or may ever be, for that matter.

Now, what are we voters to do? No matter how much we may be moved by Biden’s and Palin’s respective effort and sincerity, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin are in supporting roles. We do not get the option to make them our first choice. And it’s probably reckless citizenship to vote into the Office of President of the United States an individual based upon who’s in the second slot. 

I think it’s our individual responsibilities to, for once if never before, actually read as much as possible about what John McCain and Barack Obama stood for and who they were up until the time they ran for the Presidency in 2008. Both the limelight and political expediency have a tendency to cause candidates to temporarily deviate from who and what they have always been and stood for. I think this is particularly so for McCain and Obama.

While I would prefer a viable third choice there is none at the moment. As is so often in Life, and as the song says, “You say you get what you want. I say you get what you need.”  So, let’s take a positive approach and assume that either Barack Obama or John McCain is who we need to lead us at this time. But let us approach the question of “which one?” with intelligence and passion. Something we saw tonight in Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. Now that’s what I’d call leadership.

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On May
18, 1986 Ivan Boesky, the Wall Street arbitrageur who amassed a fortune of over $200 million dollars illegally using insider information to bet on corporate takeovers, gave the commencement address at the University of California at Berkeley’s business school.  “I
think greed is healthy,” he said.  “You can
be greedy and still feel good about yourself.” 

Back then the comment got lots of media play. When I read his speech, I remember thinking that Boesky and Paul Revere had two things in common: both were prosperous businessmen and both, by their actions, were harbingers that trouble was on the way. For Revere, it was the British. For Boesky, it was an unprecedented time of selfishness, denial and corruption in America. But that’s where there similarities end. Their differences, on the other hand, could not be more striking.

Revere was a patriot who, when his country was in need, set aside his personal business to serve the greater good. The message he (and others) carried that famous night from Boston to Lexington was to warn of British troop movements toward Lexington to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams. His actions were to preserve and protect the will of the people and the emerging nation. His personal dedication and sacrifice were indicative of so many at that time who understood that much of what was familiar would have to be relinquished, on faith, in order to gain the freedom and fairness for which they hungered.

Boesky was the bearer of quite a different message. His focus was personal. The greater good was of no concern to him. Contrary to Revere’s personal sacrifice, Boesky crossed ethical and legal boundaries, without concern or conscience, in a rabid quest for endless personal gain. What he wanted he wanted for himself and damn those obstacles along the way…and damn his country as well. He had the audacity and smugness to advise college graduates, about to make their mark in the world, that more is never enough… and how you acquire it is of little consequence.

It seems self-evident which man is to be admired. And yet, for the past 22 years we, as a nation, took up Boesky’s call and instead of seeing it for what it was (and him for who he was), a bright light shone upon a dark problem, we revered (no pun intended) his quest for material gain combined with diminished social conscience, and sought to emulate the worst of what we are capable of when we become lost in our own egos and lose sight of personal responsibility.

The current financial and energy crises are not the fault of Republicans or Democrats or Wall Street or Main Street. They are the fault of Republicans and Democrats and Wall Street and Main Street. We are each responsible for thinking and acting as if all that matters is acquiring more, newer, better and faster “things” with total disregard for how our methods of satisfying our endless hunger infringes upon every other life form on the planet…not to mention the planet Itself. We have behaved with impudence and without conscience. We have worshiped at the feet of false idols most clearly represented by the Ivan Boeskys of our world. Even those of us who saw through the illusion and knew better were too long absent and too long silent in our dissent.

Now the hour is late. Now it is time to be counted. Now it is time to be heard. Now it is time to say and do, as the Colonists and Funding Fathers did, that the greater good can only be accomplished when we understand and accept that more never is enough because it cannot satisfy the only longing that matters…that of the Soul… which is to return to Oneness and provide for All.  Not to provide equality for All, but equal access for All. What one does with that access is the prerogative given each of us by Free Will. But so long as we allow people to starve and governments to remain corrupted and the environment to be destroyed…all in the name of profit and progress…we say through word, deed and inaction that Ivan Boesky was right and the Founding Fathers were wrong…and by so doing we are a nation writing its own epitaph.

I believe in the highest good.

I believe, at this moment in time, we are confronted with the opportunity to aspire to the greater good.

I believe it is an opportunity we welcome and one at which we will prevail.

I met Paul Newman once. Well, actually, I stood next to him crossing a street in Atlantic City, New Jersey at the Democratic National Convention that was being held there. I had always spent summers at the Shore as we had a beach house there when I was growing up. That summer, 1964, I was 16 years old. I had volunteered to work as an usher seating people at the Convention. One night, after finishing my job, I was heading to the corner to “catch a jitney” ride home (sort of a mini-bus unique to Atlantic City culture) when, waiting for the light to change to green so I could cross, I turned to glance at the man standing next to me who was also waiting to cross and, well, yes, it was Paul Newman.  

Now a 16-year-old girl in 1964 standing next to Paul Newman has just one thought: Don’t faint. I actually remember thinking that. I also remember beginning to stutter, literally, trying to get out the words, “Are you really Paul Newman?”…as if a possible answer might have been, “No, not really.”  Anyway he was gracious and kind to the obviously star-struck and inarticulate teenager…a situation I think he must have been very used to…and he made a comment or two before the light changed and we both crossed.

Today he died at age 83.

What I am most awed by is not his eyes or his movie career or the longevity of his celebrity marriage in an age when celebrities can’t seem to stay married longer than the time it takes to make a movie. I am most awed by his foresight and charitable nature. He seemed to get, earlier than most, how connected we all are and how giving is the one sure path to personal satisfaction, not to mention material wealth.

There is a short video clip on Newman’s Own website today that is a brief interview with him that appears to be quite recent. If I heard it right, and I listened to it twice, he actually says “goodbye” at the end and it’s not a gratuitous goodbye…its the goodbye of a man who knows he is dying and is saying it from a place deep inside his soul. In that clip he speaks about the need, his need, to help others… particularly children, the poor, the elderly and the Earth. And help he did, having given 100% of the proceeds from his company Newman’s Own, $250,000,000, to charitable causes. 

When my father passed away 9 years ago a Rabbi told me that the best way to honor a life is to take something that was admirable about that life and become it. Perpetuate it. Carry it forward. I think we could do a lot worse than honoring Paul Newman’s life in this way. If each of us could come to understand how connected We All Are and that the greatest personal satisfaction and wealth come from giving…I believe this to be the winning combination for successfully moving beyond the economic, environmental and societal challenges we face.

Only when we care about, respect and support each other as well as the Earth with all It’s life forms will we turn this around and end the blight that is upon us and return to a state of balanced well-being.

It has been 44 years since I stood next to, and gazed into, those riveting blue eyes. Today I learned for the first time that those eyes were, in fact, colorblind. Maybe Paul Newman was not able to see color but he saw something much more important.

He saw Oneness and made the world a better place for it.

Let’s keep up the good work.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

>I couldn’t help wondering why I was so taken with the CNN photo image of Lehman Bros. headquarters on Wall Street this past week as the news broke of its pending bankruptcy following failed efforts to have it rescued by third parties. Then it hit me. It was almost seven years later, to the day, that the Lehman skyscraper image, with words of its pending financial collapse printed below, appeared on CNN…seven years to the day after 9/11.

What I was so taken with was the irony, no, not the irony but the connectivity, between the financial buildings on Wall Street that literally came tumbling down seven years ago and the ones now figuratively tumbling down… both before our very eyes.

I think one was a precursor of the other. It’s time we paid attention to the message, don’t you think?

I have listened in the past few days to Alan Greenspan and Suzy Ormond, the former being the “official” financial guru and the latter being the “populist” version, and I think they’re both wrong. Well, not wrong, just misguided. Remember when during the 1992 Presidential campaign Bil Clinton said, “It’s the economy, stupid”? Well, it’s sort of the economy now only not the way Clinton meant it. Back then he meant that George H.W. Bush was out of touch with the challenges faced by most Americans because Bush was a blue-blood elitist. 

Now, it’s about how we’ve prayed too long at the altar of money and material acquisitions…so much so…that we went too far astray from the meaning of Life and what loving Life, and one another, truly means. So, as with all things out of balance, our condition has required a “course correction.” 

The happenings in the financial market are a symptom…they are not the dis-ease.

We all feel it. Not just monetarily. We feel it in the stress we live with every day trying to keep pace with a reality controlled by the pace of technology. We feel it in the loss of meaningful relationships or even the time to cultivate them. We feel it in the frustrations we encounter trying to get adequate health care or even just a live person, rather than voice mail, to assist us in getting adequate health care. We feel it in the pressure of raising kids in a world where everything is so impersonal and where cheap, meaningless sex is so readily marketed in every medium.

Despite Barack Obama’s campaign slogan, it’s not about Change. Its about adaptation to change. We don’t need change. We already have it. We’re in it. Take a look around. Nothing is working like it used to. And that’s not a bad thing, either. It’s a good thing. Because things stopped “working” for us a while ago. We’ve been working for them. That change happened slowly over time…so slowly we missed the switchover. Only now are we waking up to the reality of where we find ourselves.

What we do about it is All That Matters.

In less than 60 days a new President of The United States will be elected and he (yes, it’s still a “he”) will take the oath of office a few months later.  As part of that oath he will swear to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution.  In so doing, might I suggest our next President spend less time bailing out the financial sector and trying to shore up a broken, misguided system of governmental corruption and more time inspiring this nation in what a call to greatness looks and feels like. This is the highest service he could perform for his nation at this time. To point the way out of darkness and towards the Light.  Inspiration is food for the Soul. This is what we truly hunger for…not a DOW over 13,000.

We, the United States of America, remain an experimental beacon of individual freedom, creativity and ingenuity. We have survived infancy, childhood and our teenage years. Will we now accept the personal responsibility of adulthood, seizing the moment to become the best we can be… or will we stay stuck in those rebellious teenage years where, if we cannot have it our way, we’ll just “throw a fit” and dig in our heels…until the rest of the world grows up and passes us by?

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

>  
     Let’s start out with a disclosure: I’m a life-long registered Democrat. It’s important to get that on the table so you know I have no axe to grind here. What I am about to say is not in support of electing John McCain. Quite frankly, I don’t know what I will do come November 4th.  But there’s time yet to make that call and in the meantime, part of making that call is doing my homework and resolving, where possible, my concerns.  Now having explained this, here’s my concern.
    I’m concerned that millions of people in this country think that Barack Obama is going to save them. Save them from themselves. They are investing their energy and their hope in him rather than in themselves. So that when utopia does not finally appear by way of this particular candidate having occupied the White House, they can say yet again that politicians are all con artists and government has failed them once more.
    His acceptance speech was emotionally stirring and the visuals and lead up masterfully orchestrated. He’s a great orator oozing with charisma who is speaking the language people want to hear. Change is the word of the day and he perceived it and seized it from the get go. Good for him.
    But as I watched and listened to his acceptance speech, I heard promises of, quite frankly, miracle after miracle of what he is going to do. If you listened carefully, he’s going to fix just about every problem we have.  He’s never done the job before, or even one remotely like it; these problems have been around for decades; they are complex problems that require multifaceted solutions; they may even be problems that cannot be fixed but are instead systems and processes that are archaic and must be dismantled and replaced…but he’s going to fix them none-the-less.
    Having said all of that, it’s not him and his absolute knowing I’m concerned about. He’s a politician trying to get elected to a job he wants. He’ll say what we want to hear.
    It’s us I’m concerned about,
    It’s the significant portion of the population who thinks that change comes from anyone or anywhere other than from inside themselves.
    Our fundamental problems are social and moral.  You cannot legislate social conscience or morality. We have lost our way to technology and the endless consuming of things with disregard for the effect we have upon one another or the planet. We have not lost the capacity for compassion although we have lost the will to act upon that compassion. These are the roots of our suffering and neither Barack Obama nor any other individual can save us from ourselves.
    The job of repairing this nation is no different than the spiritual job of repairing the world. The concept, in Hebrew, is expressed as tikkun olam…repairing the world. And so when lasting change comes, it starts individually, one step at a time; one good deed at a time; one conscious choice at a time.  Lasting change happens in small ways, personal ways, once each of us decides to no longer choose expediency rather than meaning; more rather than enough; separation rather than unity; apathy rather than concern and, inaction rather than action. Lasting change is a slow and deliberate process during which we fall down many times before we are able to finally stand on our own solid footing.  It is not the single, momentary act of pulling a lever and electing a new President.
    When enough individuals continuously participate in the kinds of choices that effect lasting change, then the collective that we are as a nation will take on a different character and heightened emanation of it’s own…a character and emanation we can be proud that will show the way not only for we Americans but for the world as well.
    My caution about this election is to be alert and aware of the inappropriate investment in the illusion that Barack Obama,  or any other individual, can or will do it for us.
    Yes. The time is now. And Yes, we can.
    But this one’s for You. And Me.
    One conscious choice at a time.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”
    
    
    
    
  

>
     Joe Biden presents a stunning opportunity to speak to the question of
whether a politician’s private life matters in relation to his or her
public service. In recent history, the likes of John Kennedy, Lyndon
Johnson, Gary Hart, Barney Frank, Bill Clinton, Jim McGreevy and most
recently, John Edwards have all been the object of scrutiny and
analysis for behavior in their private lives.  In fact, if time and
space permitted it, we could compile a list back to and including
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
    So the question is:
When electing a person to public office, how much does it matter who
they are privately vs. how well they perform their public service?
Personally I am conflicted on this issue and my conflict was renewed
yesterday by an e-mail I received which was then followed by Joe
Biden’s introduction at the Democratic National Convention by his son,
Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden.
    As a parent, it was
incredibly moving and heart-warming to see the obvious love and respect
that this young man has for, as he put it, “my hero, my father.”
Biden’s exemplary parenting and dedication to his two sons who survived
the auto accident that killed Biden’s wife and daughter is remarkable.
His priorities seem to be on very straight.  Commencing at age 29, he
made his boys his mission, all the while diligently tending to the
duties of his job as a United States Senator. And because I had the
privilege of working with him briefly in the 1980’s, I have some
personal knowledge of his character and commitment. And he’s got that
down-to-earth charisma going for him as well.  So it was exhilarating
to see him chosen as Obama’s running mate.
    Then came the e-mail.
    It was from a friend who is a strong advocate of U.S. support for
Israel and a hawk in relation to Iran and other Islamic fundamentalist
nations.  The content of the e-mail were actual cites to legislation
that Biden did not sign onto that were either pro-Israel or
anti-terrorism or anti-Iranian.  There were also links to articles that
address Biden’s voting record vs. his rhetoric, that raise the question
of how realistic he has been, or how effective his approach has been,
to dealing with the threat of Iran and it’s leaders.
    So here’s the dilemma.
    I was very outspoken on the shame that Bill Clinton brought to the
White House by his adulterous and adolescent behavior. I believed then,
and still do, that he set an appalling example and lowered the moral
bar for many.  And the contrast with the Bush’s marital relationship
and their apparent values is undeniable. But here’s the thing. Both men
were elected to lead and manage the nation.  And it’s indisputable that
in almost every analysis, Clinton did it better both domestically and
internationally. So while I prefer the public image of the Bush
relationship and both the dignity and mutual respect they project, in
the end I’m voting for an effective public servant who positively
impacts, and ideally improves, national and foreign policies. With that
criteria, Clinton trumps Bush hands down.
    Now, back to Joe Biden.
    He’s a decent man. An admirable father. A dedicated public servant.
And his choice and nomination as presented on television was stirring.
But governing isn’t about image or made-for-TV-character videos or
theatrical productions. Governing is about moving the county on a
continued trajectory toward it’s highest good while protecting it from
external harm. It’s about policies, not patinas, that get those two
missions accomplished.
    Next week, the Republicans will have
their turn (along with their media experts) to dazzle us with glitz and
glamor and similarly tug at our heartstrings. My suggestion is that
when all the hype is over, and all the candidates in place, we actually
investigate and read their public service records…their congressional
voting records…determine their real stance…on the issues that
matter to us before we vote.
    As a former divorce lawyer
who marketed a video for people going through divorce, I used to tell
women that generally, unless they are educated in advance,
they tend to pick a divorce lawyer on personality. Without knowledge of
the process and their needs, on what other basis could they possibly
choose one? And I would always follow-up that observation and say to
them “that’s how you pick a date. Not a lawyer.” 
    The same hold true for a President or Vice President.
    It’s not how they play on TV, it’s not how their personal story
moves us, it’s what issues have they championed? When have they stood
up and been counted? And for what have they stood? Its not who they
tell us they are but what, in fact, they have done about what they
believe in…and how long have they done it with consistency.
    I really like Joe Biden.
    Now I’m really going to read the record.

REMEMBER to click here to download by FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”
   

>   Aren’t there days when you can actually feel the flow of Life as well as your place in it and, in the alternative, days when Life seems to be all up hill? But what about the days when it’s neither of those two? Days when there seems to be no movement at all and you wonder what Its all about? What’s the point? What’s your real purpose? Don’t there seem to be more of those days than the other two?
    Well, I think they’re the days when you’re actually gifted the greatest opportunity to exercise three vital qualities to living your best Life: Presence, Patience and Trust.
    An apparent lack of movement in your life (apparent because everything is continuously in motion whether we perceive it so or not) creates a window of opportunity wherein you can become fully present. Absent the hustle and bustle of the way things are when so much is happening that you can barely keep up, a period of calm and seeming stagnation you time to reign in your thoughts and focus on the quality of your actions rather than the quantity of them. More present and more focused… you become perfectly positioned to elevate not only your thoughts and actions but, ultimately, your Life as well.
    This perception of lack of movement is also the perfect testing ground for developing patience. Learning to be with what Is and accept the circumstances you find yourself in is a major contributor to decreasing and eliminating the adverse effects of stress. After all, isn’t it our refusal to allow Life to unfold in Its own time but instead impose our own Will to effect, manipulate and control outcomes that cause us to wind up worrying about that “90% that never happens” while simultaneously missing what it is Life has brought us? And in the end, we get a double reward. Patience nurtures Presence.
    Finally, the apparent lack of movement gives you the chance to exercise Trust in an outcome that is in the highest good for all concerned…whether or not you get the outcome you want. Trusting Life and Its inherent goodness is a pre-requisite for trusting the inherent goodness in ourselves and others.
    So, the next time you are experiencing a day when “nothing seems to be going right”… or going anywhere at all for that matter… try and remember Presence, Patience and Trust.
    You may be surprised to discover that being fully in them turns out to create all the movement you were looking for anyway.

Remember to click here to download my FREE e-book “Too Many Secrets.”

face=”Tahoma” size=”2″>     Hopefully, “absence makes the heart grow fonder”…as the saying goes. You see, I’ve just returned from two weeks in the Costa Rican rain forest and have been AWOL from my blog. But I’ m back with lots to share so let’s get to it.
    First of all, while I was deep in the rain forest, I was also staying at the beautiful and secluded home of friends so I don’t want to mislead you into thinking that I was cutting my way through the jungle with a machete and sleeping in a tent. Definitely not my style. However, it was two weeks of being in a meditative (not vegetative) state communing with some of the most remarkable and beautiful plant, animal and insect life I have ever encountered.
    It gives one pause for thought.
    At home, if we have a spider in our bathroom or an uninvited fly at our outdoor barbecue we tend to make much of it. But I spent two weeks in a beautiful, open-air home, with frogs in my shower and pesotes (wild pigs) walking past the outdoor dining area while I ate breakfast and never even flinched. Not to mention the troop of monkeys swinging past me on my walk or the hawk flying less than six feet over my head as I swam laps in the pool. (It was so close I saw it’s face!).  And then there were all those little flying insects that were forever going in and out of the house or the “sugar ants” that seemed to be on every counter top and which the local residents simply consider “another form of protein” should they wind up in your salad or on your toast. So why all the calm and acceptance around the abundance of strange and  plentiful wildlife?
    I think I was acutely aware that I was a guest in their natural environment, not the other way around. They seemed definitely unconcerned with me and much more involved in whatever constitutes survival for them. For them, I was a “live and let live” blip on their radar screen. So long as I was respectful of peaceful co-existence, so too were they.
    And I guess that was one of the lessons I brought home to share.
    For two weeks I saw no TV, heard no radio, had no access to world news. All of the fear and terror and corruption and killing that seem so much of our daily lives, thanks to various forms of media, were absent.  From that distance, and with that perspective, I looked around me at all the peace then looked back at the way we live and I knew for certain  that we are literally killing ourselves by failing to understand the connectedness of all things and the necessity, in fact the imperative, that to live in peace is the natural (not to mention sane) way to live.
    Of course having been home for a few days now, I can feel some of the peacefulness receding and the stress of my life slipping back. But truly, I am incapable of ever forgetting the feeling of living so close to nature with so few unnatural, artificial and human-made intrusions upon my life and I am the better for it, now and always.
    I hope just hearing about it gives you pause for thought.
    And while you’re pausing, take a deep breath and know that you have the power, in this moment, to change how you’re living your life by simply changing how you see yourself in relation to everyone and everything else.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e–book, “Too Many Secrets.”

>   It’s been two weeks since my last blog entry.
    There’s a cute joke about a boy who never spoke a word in his life. Resigned that their son was mute, the parents raised him accordingly. One day at age 11, while eating oatmeal for breakfast, the boy looked up at his parents and said, “The oatmeal’s too cold.”  Astonished, his mother and father embraced him while asking, “Bobby, you can speak! Why haven’t you ever said anything before.” The boy looked at them nonplussed and replied, “Up until now, everything was OK.”
    I wish that my absence from writing these past two weeks was that simple. Or just plain true. But, to the contrary, it was a very challenging two weeks and I simply was too busy living life to write about it. Now that things have fallen into place I can share some perspective about what chaos is and why we need it.
    While most people tend to think of chaos as a bad thing that needs to be addressed, there are actually two types: the Chaos of Change and the Chaos of Stagnation. One is highly desirable while the other just gets in the way of living life. The road to living in the positive state of the Chaos of Change runs smack through the Chaos of Stagnation. Such is the paradox of Life.
    While some of us may spend an hour or a day in the Chaos of Stagnation, most of us spend years…and some of us even an entire lifetime before we realize that the Chaos of Stagnation is a necessary condition created in order to fully move into and appreciate the Chaos of Change.
    It’s the movement out of the former into the latter that’s key.
    The Chaos of Stagnation is what happens when we choose complacency over conviction. When we abdicate responsibility for our own life path and instead of seizing our personal power, relinquish it to external forces..be they events or simply other people. This type of chaos ultimately leads to restlessness, unhappiness, frustration, sadness and, if not addressed, anger.
    To the contrary, the Chaos of Change is a feeling of almost unlimited potentiality. It generates an awareness of movement, engagement and exhilaration that nourishes both inspired thinking and focused action.
    Such was the awareness born of the past two weeks of my Life.
    In Neale Donald Walsh’s most recent book, “Happier Than God” he posits that before we get what it is we ask of the Universe, we always get it’s opposite in order to have gained perspective from which to fully appreciate what it is we had asked for when it finally arrives. Problem is, most of us give up while waiting…complaining that we didn’t ask for what it is we got. Walsh suggests that when you get what it is you don’t want… know that what you do want is surely on it’s way. In the meantime, be grateful for it’s absence, for it’s absence is creating the backdrop for appreciation.
    I can now see that the Chaos of Stagnation in my life was the necessary backdrop for the Chaos of Change now upon me. I have come through the “fire swamp” so to speak (for those of you who are “Princess Bride” aficionados) and now bask in the light of unlimited potentiality known as The Chaos of Change.
    I wish you chaos in your life…yes, even the Chaos of Stagnation…as long as you use it to lead you to that pot of gold at the end of the trail… known as the Chaos of Change.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

    
    
    

>   I hate to be an “I told you so” but I did. As a matter of fact, I have been saying so for the past 10 years, at least. What it is that I have been saying is that the technology has outpaced our social development and that what we have created runs us..instead of the other way around. So it was no surprise to me that there it was, yesterday, on CNN’s home page. >TimeBanks USA, a nonprofit group
that treats time as money, was created by Edgar S. Cahn, a retired 73-year-old attorney “to put the brakes on people’s high-velocity
lifestyles.”
    It seems there’s a growing awareness that all the technology has so sped up our lifestyles that we are sick of it. More accurately stated, the accelerated  (and I would argue unnatural) pace of things has literally, made us sick.
    In fact, Cahn, the CEO of TimeBanks, says he “came up with the idea in 1980 after suffering a massive heart attack from a frenzied lifestyle that included being a speech writer and founder of a national legal services program and a law school.” And he’s not alone.  The American Medical Association has shown the
negative effects of stress on health. They say stress is a factor
in more than 75 percent of all illness and disease today. And, stress accounts for two-thirds of family doctor visits and half
the deaths to Americans under the age of 65, according to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    So, why do we resist making the connection between how we live our lives and how healthy we are?
    Just today I was with a friend who has had a chronic cough for two years. The only time she was able to get relief from it, without taking three different prescription drugs, was when she restricted her sugar and wheat intake on the recommendation of a holistic practitioner. But she got bored with the diet and went back to her old eating habits and the drugs. Just recently she saw a new alternative medicine physician and he recommended a vegan diet and told her that in less than a year she would be rid of the cough and off the drugs. Now she’s debating whether or not to follow the diet, knowing the drugs are bad for her liver. When I asked her what she would do if instead, the doctor had told her she had 6 months to live unless she went on a vegan diet and she said, “I’d be on it right away.”  Further, she went on to tell me of a female friend who recently went through a devastating financial crisis as her husband had personally pledged their home as collateral for a business expansion he was certain would pay off and instead collapsed.  The young wife spent a year fighting to save her family home and finally did. Yet she remains in dire financial straights and  has now come down with a muscular disease that prevents her from the most routine tasks. Countless medical doctors and as many tests have provided no clue to an origin or a cure. I wonder if any of them considered stress?
    We live at a frantic pace…out of alignment with Nature and our own bodily rhythms…pretending we don’t know the cause of so much illness and disease. This is not a complicated mystery to solve.  But the solution necessitates that we take a serious look at how we live our lives and how we prioritize our wants and needs.     Further, that we actually do something about what we discover.
    Books and personal accounts abound of people who have cured themselves of allegedly incurable illnesses with such means as laughter, laying down upon the earth, prayer, visualization, “energy” medicine, holistic healers…and a list that goes on and on.
    There are Laws of Nature that, when defied, wreak havoc not as punishment, but rather as an arrow pointing to a sign that says,”Your way isn’t working. Try Mine.” The staggering statistics of stress related illness from we humans trying to live at the pace of the technology we created is exactly that arrow pointing at that very sign.
     I am hopeful, and optimistic, that once awakened form our lethargy, we will seek out our internal rhythms and follow them back to health.
    In the meantime, back off of the technology for awhile. And if you don’t want to read my blog, or anyone else’s, for a week or so, well, that’s just fine with me.
    Here’s to your health.

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