Is anyone else tired of outrage and sick to death of fear? I know I am. But we do live in a very unsettling time, don’t we? This time on earth is a time of great transition, where governments are crumbling, air is dirty, politics are dirty, and our minds have become so dirty. This is not an accident, but the unfolding of a very sinister and very well-thought out design.
The bought-and-paid-for mainstream media continues its campaign to bang the drums of fear. Fear the muslims; fear the terrorists; fear the gays. Democrats should fear Trump; but republicans, you should fear Hillary. All of us should fear going out in the streets at night. Black folks should fear cops; cops must fear the public; and well, hey, us…the public, we are suppose to fear just about everything. Then, when we get sick to death of fear it begins to give way to the next logical step in our species emotional undoing…outrage.
Do you think that every broadcast network has the same ten basic stories and pieces of information by accident? This earth is gigantic and America is gigantic, beyond what we can even wrap our minds around gigantic; and yet country wide we have almost all networks and all news outlets reporting the same basic fear-laced stories. That’s not news, those are called talking points. And they have been carefully arranged and designed to make you afraid, and then outraged. And we have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
I’m so tired of people being outraged by everything—or anything. It may seem reasonable in some cases, like when people are getting shot in our streets or decimated in foreign lands or whenever Trump opens his fat mouth. And it may seem totally irrational in other cases, like when the delivery guy forgets your side of garlic toast or someone interrupts you in a casual conversation. But in either case outrage is counter productive. The consciousness that devastates our planet, wages war, picks on the weak, bullies the different, and lies to the willing, is the same one that becomes fearful and outraged at all of those things.
The world doesn’t need us being afraid and outraged anymore. There is a season for all things, but the season for impotent anger and debilitating fear has passed. It’s time to turn turn turn the page. Humanity has no more use for our outrage and fear. Outrage is just borne out of our pity mixed with helplessness; so we rage and flail, and determine in our minds that by making some rant on social media we did our part to get the word out and spread our view point. But we didn’t, and we haven’t. And that’s okay. Because honestly, the last thing the world needs is more of us outraged and attached to our view points.
All we’ve done when we announce our fear or outrage on our various social networks, or incessantly to our friends, is spread it around, and add to it. It’s time for us, for humanity to get a hold of ourselves. Not the government, not some other group or some other ethnicity…but you, and me. Don’t use this moment to get outraged and say “yeah, so and so needs to get a hold of themselves, Brian is right.” No, that misses the whole point. Ghandi said to be the change you want to see in the world, so I’m saying I need to get a hold of myself. And if that resonates, perhaps you do too.
Albert Einstein once said you cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must solve it with the opposite consciousness. In the face of mass shootings and global catastrophes humanity is better served by our compassion. When a mass shooting occurs or Trump opens his mouth, or a nuclear power plant springs a leak, instead of getting outraged, fill up with love. Make that choice in that moment. Your outrage and fear are only the result of a practiced pattern of behavior anyway. So try something else and keep practicing at it. Take a breath, feel the blessings that are still around you, and then use your power to be that blessing to your fellow humans in need. If you dare, well up with compassion even for the shooter, even for Trump himself, even for the idiot who caused the power plant to leak. This is something you don’t hear every day, because screw him, he killed innocent people; or he’s racist; or he should have been more careful. Well yeah, that’s all true; but compassion counts the most when someone has done something horrible that we don’t understand, it is strongest when we don’t want to give it. I can’t think of any form of consciousness or action more opposite than that.
I know, that sounds easier said than done. It is. I’m not saying it’s easy to have compassion. I’m saying it’s easy to get outraged. Let’s try a little harder and do something a little differently. Our fellow humans needs us to be smart about this. When it gets difficult, have compassion on yourself, and remember it would be easy to get outraged and get over it. But get vulnerable and go through it instead. We are in this thing together, creating a civilized society, whether we like it or not. So if you practice love today then you’ve changed the world already.