Putting An End To The Fear

I was watching the news the other day and I was struck by something that I already knew, but hadn't absorbed. It was like an epiphany, though it shouldn't have been. And it cured me of much of my problems for the past two weeks.

I was watching the news and the newscaster was saying that the announcement that we are thinking of bombing Syria caused the stock market to hit a low mark. I asked myself why and the first thing that came out was that we are afraid. We're afraid that if we do something as drastic as bombing a country, it will somehow effect our economy.

We are anticipating something bad happening.

We have bred a culture of fear.

It is a culture that has reminded us, though we don't like being spied on by the NSA, we are safer because of it. That is not necessarily true, but we are being bred to think so. Fear. It is a culture that reminds us that, if one hates their job and knows that what they are doing is ethically wrong, one should keep their mouth shut because the economy is not supportive of those without a job. Better a job that sucks the soul out of you than being on unemployment. Fear.

I've been fearful most of my life.

Something happened to me just about two weeks ago that has changed me on the inside.

I was asleep in my living room in the early, early morning, and some person or people tried to kick my house door open. When they were unsuccessful, but only by one more kick, they threw rocks through our large front window.

I was terrified.

Not gonna lie.

And it changed me fundamentally, on the inside. I spent the first week with my gun next to me. Then I left the gun on my wife's side and kept a hammer near me.

It's crazy what fear will do to you. I never carried weapons around with me. It's been crazy what it has done to me.

It's the great motivator...Fear can make you do all sorts of things you wouldn't normally do. At least until you wake up and realize you're a slave to it.

It's true that fear also helps us to fight when we need to fight, but unnatural, uncontrolled fear can ruin us as people. 

So? How do we stop it?

I could only do one thing. We need to be counting our blessings and not our troubles. We need to pay more attention to the good things in life and less on the bad things.

I'll do it if you will.

I plan to spend the next month telling myself how blessed I am in my life, and try to forget the things that people have done to me...or might do to me.

September 1-30 is a trouble free zone. Though life will always have trouble, I plan to think more about the blessings of my life than the troubles. If it doesn't work, I plan to catch myself and start over.

I don't know if it will work, but trying has got to be better than worrying about a home invasion.

Right?

Remember, you are blessed...and I am too!