Greener Grass

In 2017 my wife and I moved from Denver to Vail, Colorado. It had long been a dream of ours to live in a mountain town and after calling Denver home for five years, we found new jobs, made the big move, and made our dream a reality.

In my previous life, metropolitan living always appealed to me with the organic sense of energy, culture, and diversity that residing in a city can provide. But in recent years, urban life has also become more problematic. Some of the cities I have called home for years (Portland, Seattle, San Diego, and Denver) have become rampant with homelessness, drug use, crime, traffic, and a skyrocketing cost of living. There’s also the seeming ineptness of many city governments to address these issues.

Just blocks from where we lived in downtown Denver, there were masses of tents set up on city sidewalks surrounded by garbage and filth. We commonly witnessed aggressive panhandling, scenes of horrific drug abuse, and abject poverty. A few years ago on her morning walk to work, my wife came across a homeless man masturbating in front of her. The summer before we left Denver, I witnessed a woman in her underwear leaning up against our building with a needle still sticking out of her arm. And that was city life before 2020. It was time to get out of Dodge.

Many of our great cities have been in crisis in recent years, but now cities have also been particularly hit by the current global pandemic (not to mention mass demonstrations and civil unrest). Especially given that many people can now work remotely, living in a community like mine seems like a no-brainer.

Fleeing the problems of city life wasn’t the impetus for our move to the mountains, but it certainly was a factor. When I walk in my neighborhood now, instead of homelessness, piled up garbage, and discarded needles, I’m surrounded by the serenity of vast forests and clean mountain air. Our new home isn’t immune from problems, but I must admit Vail has been a pretty nice place to ride out 2020.

My personal greener grass narrative is not a unique story. Especially this year, people have been flocking to communities like mine in droves. In some cases they are literally showing up with suitcases of cash to make their escape plans a reality. Protecting your family and moving to higher ground or a safer address seem like prudent solutions, but recently I have started questioning if “getting out of Dodge” really solves anything.

Most don’t have the option of just leaving their jobs and communities or the means of simply picking up and moving to a place like Vail. I’ve also learned many times in life that the grass isn’t always greener as the old adage states. Speaking from personal experience, a change of address won’t protect you from past mistakes, inoculate you from future set backs, or heal a broken heart.

Living in Vail also won’t insulate you from inequality, drug and alcohol abuse, and homelessness. Living in the mountains won’t protect you from COVID or even civil unrest. In fact, with a one-dimensional economy based on tourism, the immense cost of living, and the massive divide between have and have not’s, life in Vail is potentially just as precarious as it is in urban San Francisco or New York.

The fact of the matter is our whole society is ailing, not just certain geographic locations. While parts of our country do seem sicker than others, moving won’t help change the spread of the deadly diseases we’re facing.

The pandemic we’ve been living with this past year is obviously a disease. But so are the addictions of social media, gambling, and pornography that have been steadily rising in recent years. So are the drug and alcohol epidemics that have been raging for the past 20 years. So is the obesity epidemic that has been growing for the past 30 years. So are disparities of wealth, wage stagnation, corporate greed, and a system that favors the powerful that has been growing for the past 40 years. So are the abhorrent qualities of racism and narcissism that have been part culture for hundreds of years.

These are sicknesses that we have collectively perpetuated and we are all ultimately responsible for addressing them. These cancerous problems are growing everywhere, and it’s going to take all of us to solve them. Just blaming the “other side” solves nothing and frankly neither will moving to Texas, the mountains, or the beach.

For decades we’ve touted individual responsibility as the solution to our dilemmas while blatantly ignoring corporate irresponsibility and allowing the ineptitude of government. We’ve imprisoned millions and have declared wars on terrorism, crime, poverty, drugs, and fat only to make most of these issues far worse. Our response to the problems we face seems to be “everyone for themselves.” You don’t like being poor - get a job. You don’t like being addicted - stop using. You don’t like being heavy - start exercising. You don’t like your city – move.

And how’s that working for us?

Sicknesses don’t heal without addressing the root causes. There isn’t a vaccine for contempt, a magic cure for inequality, or a drug cocktail for racism. Shoving the unpleasant filth of homelessness to another location or putting drug users in jail does not eradicate the disease. A “can do” attitude doesn’t treat the gaping wounds of our nation’s crises of mental health, addiction, and inequality.

I’ve moved cities, states, and changed careers multiple times. I am a living testament that the grass isn’t always greener. I’ve learned the hard way that healing begins with both radical humility and brutal honesty. Healing begins with the ability to listen, the courage to speak out, and the willingness to stand up. Healing begins by expressing love and creating community.

Greener grass doesn’t start with a change of address, but a shift of consciousness.

Groundhog Day

Lately I’ve been feeling like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day. In recent weeks it’s the same routine, the same uncertainty, and the same boredom day in and day out.

Every night it feels like I’m watching a rerun of the previous night’s evening news - COVID-19, the failing economy, and the anger on both sides of the open or not debate. It’s as if tonight’s news could have been two months ago or two months from now. Like Groundhog Day, life seems to be stuck at a standstill and on auto repeat.

The illusion of feeling stuck in an endless day is enough to drive one mad. As Einstein once said, “The separation between past, present and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one.” Of course, time isn’t really stuck and there is movement, but it’s easy to feel hopeless if you look in the wrong places.

When I have faced vast uncertainty in my life - Losing my job, the end of a close relationship, the passing of a loved one, a global pandemic, two things tend to happen. First, the days get really long and I’m prone to escape these endless hours with distractions and numbing. Secondly, I spend much of my time ruminating and dwelling on the past or future. Looking back, I rehash my missteps and fall into the pratfalls of guilt and shame. When I’m not looking back, I turn my gaze towards the what’s to come. My brain keeps me up at night spinning in a merry go round of yet unanswered questions: “What’s going to happen? Where will I go? What will I do? What if this pain never ends?” The list goes on.

It’s a cycle I have repeated many, many times throughout the years. Then something brings me back to the moment. To the present. To what I have always known – there is only now and love is the answer.

In the movie Groundhog Day when faced with the prospect of having to repeat the same day over and over again, Bill Murray’s character, Phil Connors first embraces his plight by indulging his every desire from binge eating to habitually womanizing. But eventually these distractions lose their allure and Phil becomes despondent, determining that suicide is the only choice left. But even that doesn’t work - the days keep coming. Only love offers him a way out.

Like Phil Connors, when I have felt stuck, I’ve tried almost every trick in the book (minus the robbery and suicide attempts). My indulgences range from comfort food to cold beer; YouTube clips to endless scrolling on my phone. At some point my wife inevitably pleads with me to put the phone down and be present.

It’s good advice. It’s really the only advice - There is only now, use it wisely.

Remember when you were a little kid? Your parents would tell you it was only three weeks until your birthday or three months until the family trip to Disneyland. You’d wake up every day asking, “is today the day?” But three weeks might as well have been three years to a three year old. As a small child you had no concept of time. There is no yesterday or tomorrow, only today.

As adults many are inclined to trade the wonder of living in the present for the tug of war between blissful memories and wishful thinking. We internalize regret and mull over the paralyzing uncertainty of the future. To cope with this loop of hope, fear and remorse, we tend to form “busy” lives with jobs, families, and activities.

Only discipline or a crisis breaks this cycle of busyness. The discipline of mindfulness allows you to see the truth about time and a crisis forces you to reevaluate how you use it. Sometimes a crisis is necessary to wake us up and ground us on a new foundation. Sometimes discipline is necessary to remind us what we already know - there is only now, use it wisely.

This year Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow and predicted an early spring. While temperatures have stayed generally above average, ironically, ‘winter’ still endures for many. Darkness feels prevalent, sickness is in the air, and we yearn for the new beginnings of spring.

I’m guessing this moment likely isn’t your favorite moment. This pandemic has brought a lot of primal fear, anger, and dysfunction to the surface. In response, maybe you’re looking back pining away for the good old busy days. Maybe you’re using your time now swimming in a sea of distractions: surfing, scrolling, and binging. Or maybe you’re up late at night paralyzed with fear about the future. 

In these present circumstances, sometimes life feels like Groundhog Day. Add in a heavy dose of fear and uncertainty and the choices can feel limited - escape the present, wish for the past, or hope for the future. All seem like reasonable choices given the climate of quarantines, protests, and social distancing.

I can’t blame you for looking back, escaping the present, or worrying about the future. I’m certainly guilty on most days. But then I remember that I only have one job - to love - my Maker, my neighbor, and myself.

Love is an activity that is only available in the present. As Phil Connors learned in that classic movie, sandwiched between meditating on the past and an imagined future, the present ultimately offers no choice but to love. When faced with immense hatred, the tumultuous Sixties, and the vast uncertainty of the future, Martin Luther king Jr. said, “We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.” We too have this glorious opportunity.

Whether it’s real life or a movie script, the futile effort of trying to escape the moment only exacerbates our circumstances. The past is merely an unreliable memory, the future is yet an unknown mystery, and the present offers us the opportunity to go deeper and to love. There is only now, use it wisely.

A New Shore

I remember when my friend Matt walked in to the wilderness and never returned. I had just spoken with him a couple of days before his disappearance and his final words to me were, “if I could just figure out my medication.” Matt was generous, smart, passionate, and wickedly funny. I miss him terribly. If only I could go back.

I remember the first time I was in the hospital. I was seven and had a staph infection in my knee, which required two major reconstructive surgeries. The episode left me scarred both literally and figuratively. I still am terrified of needles and to this day, my knee pops and aches from years of scar tissue build up. If only I could go back.

I remember when I skipped a chance to see Pavarotti perform in Vienna so I could go out partying instead. I remember movies before they were just comic book sagas and endless sequels. I remember TV before reality TV, news before it was sensationalized and polarizing, and TV ads before they were mostly drug ads. I remember life before we were plugged in 24/7 and when the Internet was basically just an encyclopedia. If only I could go back.

I remember when I wanted to change my major but I never did - I didn’t study what I loved in college, I studied what I thought I should study. I remember the time I didn’t get into grad school and didn’t try again. I remember when I didn’t start that business, create that curriculum, or write that book. If only I could go back.

I remember the first time I had my heart broken. In junior high I had my first kiss with my first girlfriend and weeks later, she dumped me. I tore up a textbook on the school bus in frustration. Since then I’ve had partnerships fail, an ex-girlfriend die in a mass shooting, and I experienced a gut-wrenching divorce. I’ve learned that broken hearts heal, but you also can’t take back the wrongs. If only I could back.

I remember when I was 22 and Grandpa died. He was just learning what it really meant to love and then, it was over. I sat with my cousin in the hospital hallway and sobbed and sobbed. I yearned to know my real Grandfather. If only I could go back.

I remember the time I didn’t take the job in San Francisco or the one in New Orleans. The time I thought I had found the perfect career, but didn’t get the gig. The time the big promotion didn’t pan out, the time the start-up failed, and the time my favorite job morphed into corporate monotony. I remember last year when I was passed up for what seemed like the perfect position. If only I could go back.

I remember when I was perfectly fit. I remember not feeling my backache every morning. I remember dancing around that boxing ring feeling like I was the champ. If I could be frozen in time physically, I’d choose to live at age 33. If only I could go back.

I remember last year when Dad was sick. As I watched him in his final weeks I was angry that I would never get to see Mom and Dad be that cute and loving elderly couple in their 80’s an 90’s. I felt robbed of that time with Dad living out his golden years. If only I could go back.

I remember life before AIDS, the opioid epidemic, obesity, mass shootings, suicides of despair, political correctness, political gridlock, economic disparity, climate change and the COVID-19 Pandemic. If only I could go back…

There’s been a lot of talk recently about going back, returning to normal, and turning the economy back on. Going to work or school and having routine and structure are important aspects of daily life. But one thing I’ve learned over the years in both success and failure is that no matter how steadfastly we wish to go back or strive to recreate the past, we can never really go back.

Says author Francis Weller, “When we are in the grips of illness, a major focus in our mind is the hope of getting back to where we were before this sickness began. But we are not meant to go back...we must recognize that we have been uprooted by our cancer, our heart attack, or our depression and we have been set down on some new shore. Like any true ritual process, we are meant to come out of the experience deeply changed.”

The truth is we can’t go back and we aren’t meant to. Not when you face a life-altering illness. Not when you lose your first love, your best friend, or your Dad. Not when you lose your youth, your dream job ends, or when you experience transcendent art for the first time.

We will never get to experience childhood again, go back to the first day of college, or experience the choices we didn’t make. We can only shed our old skin and make new choices. It is only in the willingness to encounter sorrow that we can truly know love and it is only in losing part of ourselves that we allow ourselves the space to grow.

The western paradigm is a love affair with infinite growth, but culturally we are simultaneously terrified of death. Ironically, true transformational growth happens through loss when we face our shadows of guilt and grief. We can only be born again after losing ourselves first. When we aren’t willing to face the death of our ego ideals, we simply see repetition, stagnation, and gridlock. If these words sound familiar, maybe it’s because in many ways they are a descriptive of ‘normal’ life in modern society.

U2 was my favorite band growing up and they used to end every concert with their song “Forty” based on the 40th Psalm. As the show would end, the entire crowd would sing the chorus in unison “I will sing, sing a new song.” The chant would continue until the band left the stage and the lights came on.

When this sickness is over, we will have been set down on “a new shore” as Francis Weller says. This moment presents an opportunity – not to go back, return to normal, or make something great once again, but to be truly transformed and sing a new song.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

“My experience is what I agree to attend to.” - William James

If I had a nickel for every time I heard my Mother say the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” when I was growing up, I’d probably be retired by now. Usually this phrase was reserved as a retort for when my brother and I used profanity or when we wanted to watch a movie or TV program that Mom didn’t approve of.

I remember once when I was huddled around the living room TV with my friends watching a movie. If memory serves me correctly, it was the 80’s cult-classic Sixteen Candles. Maybe it was Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Either way, at a certain risqué scene, Mom went over to the VCR, hit the stop button and with a stern look said, “Not in my house - Garbage in, garbage out!” My friends didn’t bat an eye; we simply headed outside to play basketball.

In my house, neatness was expected. Just like we knew enough not to mess with my Dad when it came to literal garbage in terms of picking up after ourselves, we also knew never to mess with my Mom when it came to ‘garbage’ in terms of morality. (Garbage did not pertain to junk food and sweets, although sugar cereal was outlawed and alcohol was definitely verboten in our home).

For some garbage back then was rap music or movies and video games that glorified sex and violence. Tipper Gore even led a movement condemning explicit music. Whether or not such content was or is actually harmful is up for debate, but it’s easy to see why rap and violent video games may have seemed threatening to suburban Moms. Importantly awareness was brought to the issue for people to make up their own minds about taking out what they deemed as ‘trash.’

Still, the 80’s was a different and more simplistic time. Back then people watched TV, listened to cassette tapes and radio, and they may have had a VCR, but that was about it. With the prevalence of the Internet, the average American now consumes an estimated 11 hours of media every day! With this environment of constant connectivity, today’s garbage is harder to quantify and more subtle. But the influences of fear, addiction, hatred, and toxicity are everywhere if we look closely.

The world has been transfixed about the growing concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic and rightfully so, at least to a degree. Knowledge is power and staying informed and taking precautions is prudent, thoughtful and saves lives. But misinformation, hysteria, gossip, and profiting on the fears of others is repulsive and repugnant.

Many feel helpless as to what they can do to control their lives in a time of social distancing and self-quarantine. We can start by taking out the garbage. That is, controlling what content we take in, substances we consume, and even what thoughts we think. As a recent article that I read stated, “To Control Your Life, Control What You Pay Attention To.”

This is a tipping point in our society and one of the lessons learned from this pandemic is to be on guard with our thinking. We need to pay much greater attention where it comes to the environment, our collective health, and the well-being of others around us. We need to pay more attention to the food we eat, the media we consume, and the relationships we keep. We need to pay much less attention to fear, overconsumption, and judgment towards others. We also need to pay less attention to those looking to control our thoughts and influence our behavior.

For instance, how alert are you to the marketing messages you are ingesting? Digital marketing experts estimate that most Americans are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day. Some of these ads are informative, some are entertaining, but some are merely promoting fear, consumption, and even addiction for the sake of profit. The same goes for other content whether it’s news or merely entertainment.

Instead of taking in garbage we must stand firm for truth and justice and know that harmony and positivity can also bring abundance. Especially now, we must scrutinize what others are saying whether it’s a person, group, or a corporation. If every thought and action is based in either fear or love, we must spend our time now more than ever separating the trash from the recycling, the good from the bad, and the fear from the love.

Whatever your religious, moral, or political beliefs are we can probably all agree that we need to be taking out the trash with more regularity. Taking out the trash starts with clarity of thought and clarity of thought starts with stillness and solitude. Maybe it’s time to cut down to just 10 hours of media a day and use that other hour to pray, meditate, or just take a quiet walk. As Anne Lamott says, “almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Before this crisis occurred, we had glaring systemic and societal issues to address – a declining life expectancy, opioid and substance addiction, suicide, and obesity. We have a homelessness epidemic and a significant portion of our populace that is one bad break from being on the street. We have a stagnant and gridlocked (if not broken) political system. Far too many are self-obsessed, narcissistic, and even hateful where it comes to those that think differently. Far too many are feeling left behind, left out, and forgotten. Even the planet is neglected. 

None of this is a coincidence. As Mom used to say, if our thinking is full of garbage, so will the byproducts of our thoughts. My sincere hope is that this pandemic represents a moment that will allow for empathy and love to conquer our collective thinking. Maybe this is the moment where we see that the person you despise or the individual who opposes your viewpoint is just like you are – someone with a capacity to both hurt and heal.

We must cast out fear, compulsivity, and hatred by recognizing these malicious suggestions whether they come from our own thinking or the suggestions of others. As the saying goes, “Ships don’t sink because of the water around them. They sink because of the water that gets in them.” If there was ever a time to take out the garbage and put our thoughts on lockdown, that time is now.

The Fear of Living

According to the Chapman University Survey on American Fears, a corrupt government is now the number one fear for people in our country. Other top worrisome concerns for Americans include pollution, those close to them dying/getting sick and not having enough money.

In our modern turbulent world, it’s curious but perhaps not surprising that these new fears have replaced the more ‘traditional’ fears of dying and public speaking. We now fear the environment around us (both literally and figuratively) more than our own internal fears. We fear the economic environment, the ecological environment the political environment. In a telling sign of the times, five of the top ten fears are also now related to ecological issues like pollution and global warming.

For many years, the most common fears were “phobias” such as: social phobias (public speaking or going to parties), arachnophobia (spiders) arcophobia (heights), pteromerhanophobia (flying), claustrophobia (small confined spaces), ophidiophobia (snakes), trypanophobia (needles) and so on. And, of course, the grand daddy of all primal fears (death, or those closest to us dying).

While we still fear dying and losing those nearest to us, what we really seem to fear more than ever is living. It seems almost counter-intuitive, but many now fear living even more than dying. Considering the nature of things these days, this actually makes some sense.

Life in the year 2018 seems vastly uncertain, utterly confusing, and most of all, completely vulnerable. Attack of every sort seems imminent - cyber attack, data breaches, terrorism, civil unrest, environmental collapse, financial meltdown, pollution, identity theft, drought, fires, mass shootings, devastating floods and storms.

One could contend that our modern existence boils down to an obsessive state of worry and constant rumination about these disheartening dilemmas: How will we make a living? How will we pay our medical bills, how will we find clean water, how will our corrupt government protect us? Is it safe to go to church or the mall?

Moreover, the nature of our habitually plugged in lives perpetuates this never-ending cycle of doom and gloom. We seem to be in a hopeless and powerless state marked by environmental collapse, the erosion of jobs to machines, futile political polarization and gridlock, the decline of civil discourse and the epidemic of loneliness – Why should we fear flying and snakes, when life is this scary!?!

It’s enough to drive one to drink or look the other direction at something bright, shiny and pleasant. So, that is exactly what many of us do – we numb. We incessantly surf, scroll, browse, and shop. We text, Snapchat, and Tweet. We dull our pain and anxiety with booze and opiates. We watch TV, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime. We travel or participate in ‘experience driven’ vacations to escape the busyness, boredom and fear of our ordinary lives. We brood over sports, scandal, and celebrity gossip. In short, we do anything to flee from reality because it’s just too damn scary and uncertain.

It’s a daunting task in this day and age to ponder the nature of the immense problems of living (let alone come up with possible solutions). It’s no wonder we’re driven to so much distraction. Regardless of whether our fear is living or dying, many react with the same mantra – “run like hell.”

Sometimes when I stop and think about the really good parts of being alive in this era, I can only come up with one thing - food. The food is really good. Craft food, farm to table restaurants, the organic movement, specialty food stores, authentic food trucks, what’s not to like? I can only imagine future conversations in Heaven or the next dimension with former relatives or those from other times:

Q: “So, what was life like back in the 2000’s?”

A: “Well, it was terrifying, but the food was excellent!”

Yeah, and at least the music was good on the Titanic, right? Indeed, it’s hard not to be a flippant skeptic in this day and age, and yet there is a way out of the despair and subsequent numbing. The recipe for curing hopelessness is love. Specifically, the love of one self.

Gandhi famously said: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” 

In the book of Luke, Christ commanded: “The kingdom of God is within you.”

The Dalai Lama said that peace: “Starts within each one of us.”

The foundational element for a true peace of mind is love. Whether your peace means justice, bringing about the end of conflict, environmental harmony, freedom from worry over financial concerns, or the trials of health and happiness - Solving all these dilemmas starts within the confines of our own self-love. Whatever your belief construct is or whomever you pray to, the path to a fulfillment of peace is clear - The only way to calm the tumultuous waters that we are currently navigating collectively is for us to each seek inner peace and grace individually.

Like many these days, I too am worried about the future as I am worried about the now. But I have begun to see that my biggest personal task and contribution is to seek and forge my own path for peace. We must begin to see that the acute dilemmas of our time are exacerbated by the biggest trial of the day – distraction from our internal conflicts.

The real fear of living isn’t about external phobias, societal collapse or the threat of our own demise. Rather, the root of this fear is about the willingness to confront our own shadows of shame, trauma and guilt. The journey starts with the willingness to embrace both the sharpness of pain and dullness of stillness. As overwhelming as our current obstacles may seem, each one of us has a crystal clear path in solving the crisis of communal fear – facing our own.

The Safety Dance

As a toddler in the 70’s, one thing that was noticeably absent whenever I was riding around in the car with my parents was a car seat. In fact, I didn’t even wear a seatbelt. Instead, I used to sit on the center armrest in the front seat. Apparently, I liked the view up there and the closer proximity to Mom and Dad made for more robust conversation. 

Just imagine the uproar these days of seeing a toddler riding in a car down the street just inches from the windshield without so much as a car seat or even a seat belt providing protection. The ordeal would be national news and the parents would surely be sent to prison! But back in my formative years, no one seemed to give a damn. And it wasn’t just the seat belt either. The 70’s and 80’s were like the Wild West for kids growing up in that era. No seat belts, no scrutiny and no supervision.

Not to throw my parents under the bus, mind you. Loose parenting was without a doubt the norm in my day. Like most kids back then, I learned to ride a bike without a bike helmet. I learned to ski without a helmet as well. Every kid I knew ate peanuts (and gluten, lactose and everything else we could inhale). Most kids were a bit hyper and yet, as far as I knew, none were regularly medicated.

As grade-schoolers, my friends and I walked to the bus stop unaccompanied by parents. We rode our bikes around the neighborhood and all over town. As pre driving teenagers, we regularly took the bus downtown to hangout. All activities were unsupervised and there were no cell phones or other means of direct communication with actual adults. We were simply told to be home by dinner.

Not that there weren’t legitimate dangers to be concerned with. The violent crime rate in the 1980’s was significantly higher than it is now. I knew two kids that died from ski accidents. A family friend lost their son to drunk driving. One kid in my high school was hit by a train and killed. Several kids from a local school were killed in a tragic mountaineering accident. 

Indeed there were good reasons to be at least somewhat fearful back then and yet we were seemingly oblivious to danger. It’s a wonder I survived! All joking aside, society back in the day needed to get its act together where it came to safety, supervision and street smarts. Fortunately, we did.

In the past 30 years, seat belts have saved countless lives. Helmets have prevented many deaths and serious life altering injuries. Prominent media campaigns like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) helped bring about positive changes in attitudes and legislation to combat impaired driving. Social attitudes have vastly improved as well. For instance, gay kids and other marginalized groups didn’t enjoy the freedom and respect back then that they do now. Thanks to an evolution in thought and action, life has become safer and in many ways, better. 

However, while the 70’s and 80’s were a bit too reckless and nonchalant, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Fear now permeates almost every facet of our culture. Parents don’t let their kids outside unaccompanied because of fearing kidnappers and rapists. We fear immigrants as dangerous criminals and opportunists looking to steal our jobs. We fear terrorism. We fear people using the wrong bathrooms. We even fear peanuts and gluten. Many, if not most of these topical fears have almost no reasonable basis or factual substantiation. We’re obsessed with danger and paralyzed by fear, but the reality is we have never been safer. Consider the following statistics:

• According to the FBI, violent crime rate in the US fell 48% between 1993 and 2016.

• In the year October 2010-September 2011, there were only 105 kidnappings (65 abducted by complete strangers) that year out of a population of 73.9 million children.

• Not including the tragedy of 9/11, there are an average of just two Americans killed by (jihadist) terrorism every year. Consider that 69 people are killed by lawnmowers every year in our country!

• An estimated 1% of Americans (approximately 3 million people) have celiac disease. 3 million people is far from insubstantial, but more than 30 million Americans avoid gluten despite no indication that they are sensitive to gluten or any evidence that it’s healthier for you.

• In the decade from 1996-2006, the CDC documented a total of 13 child deaths from peanut exposure. Certainly, any death of a child is tragic, but because of thirteen deaths in 10 years, we’ve changed our entire nationwide scholastic and cultural approach to nutrition.

We don’t connect the dots of our media-driven, fear-based culture and how it’s making us inept, impotent and frankly, soft. We’re weak where we need to toughen up and we’re distracted or ignorant where it comes to the actual legitimate fears we should be concerned with.

• Despite a tragic and pronounced epidemic of addiction, no one seems to notice the correlation that many kids (and adults) are more heavily medicated than ever. Furthermore, no one seems to mind the constant bombardment of aggressive advertising touting highly addictive substances from processed sugar to alcohol to prescription drugs.

• Despite the alarming trend of growing suicide rates, we pay little attention to the compulsive nature of screen time and social media, which are correlated with depression and anxiety.

• Despite guns killing almost 1300 kids each year and the appalling epidemic of mass shootings and school shootings, we’re too self absorbed and politically polarized to actually get anything done about it.

• Despite a massive looming threat from the critical state of the environment, many are unwilling to adjust their lifestyle and consumption habits. 

The obvious question we should be asking related to issues of safety is the query “Is It working?” Seat belts undoubtedly work. Without question, bike and ski helmets work. But ‘safe’ zones and ‘helicopter' parenting do nothing but perpetuate a culture of fear and ineptitude. Prescription drug ads do nothing but create a frenzy of drug use and abuse.

False ideologies on both sides of the political spectrum are to blame for our coddled and contemptuous society. Many shamefully fear monger by demonizing those that look, pray and love differently. Others left lack courage in standing up to political correctness run amok. We are now a nation of wimps and whiners thanks in large part to the unintended consequences of overparenting and the ridiculous notion of “safetyism.” 

The fact is we are much safer than we think from the issues that garner the most attention like crime and terrorism. Yet paradoxically, we’re also in much more danger than we’re aware from the issues that lurk beneath the surface of popular thought. While we’re busy fretting over immigrants, terrorists and peanuts, threats of our own psyche (addiction, mental health and suicide) are literally killing us. Because of these threats, for the second year in a row, as a nation we are facing a declining life expectancy.

If we are to succeed personally, culturally and environmentally, we need a balanced approach to fear and safety. I’m not advocating for a return to the careless attitudes of my free-swinging childhood. But it’s time to bring that pendulum back to the center if just a bit. It’s time for us to face the music and stand up to fear instead of promoting and succumbing to it.

Mental Slavery – The American Nightmare

I am proud to call myself an American. I’m honored to live in a country that stands for freedom, not to mention the great human spirits of innovation, opportunity and creativity. From the Declaration of Independence to cultural contributions that have benefitted all of mankind, we Americans have a lot to be proud of.

The “American Dream” serves as an example that many across the globe look to emulate. My ancestors emigrated to the United States from Germany and Scandinavia to establish and demonstrate that dream in all of its glory. In addition to providing opportunity and freedom for its citizenry, America has also upheld these values for much of humanity. Many Americans, including some of my relatives, have fought against the evils of tyranny and fascism, putting their lives on the line in the name of justice and liberty.  

But the greatness of the most successful republic in history is also contrasted and tainted by an ugly ball and chain of oppression. For all of America’s countless moral victories, paradoxically we have also enslaved millions. From the genocide of American Indians, to the enslavement of African Americans to Japanese American internment in WWII, you cannot talk American history without acknowledging the ‘American nightmare’ of slavery.

Thankfully, the concept of literal bondage and ‘physical’ slavery is largely a thing of the past in our country. However, an arguably worse and dubious carnage lurks in the shadows of modern America – ‘mental’ slavery. One cannot observe a news headline these days without running into the concept of subjugation of thought. Addiction, obesity, suicide, mass shootings and even the compulsive nature of social media are all examples of mental enslavement.

Throughout the course of history, popular thought accepted that certain races and cultures were subhuman, genetically different and inferior (and therefore worthy of mistreatment and enslavement). As humanity has evolved, most have come to see the thinking that brought about mass enslavement as a fabricated myth and a devious lie. We can largely agree that all human beings are truly equal and share an unlimited capacity for love and goodness regardless of color or creed.

However, while we as a civilization and society have made tremendous strides in the concept of physical slavery, we’ve yet to fully acknowledge the nefarious underlying suggestions that bring about mental captivity. The crux of mental slavery is less malicious and harder to spot. Instead of overt hatred and judgment, the conditions that bring about the confinement of thought are more subliminal in nature.

Notably, the pervasive and constant dopamine loops that permeate our constantly connected world can promote an obsessive sense of tribalism. That is, labeling one another as genetically unique, different or damaged. While commonplace, this type of thinking also carries the risk of addiction and misery, as many become slaves to their own labels.

Says best selling author and professor of ethical leadership at NYU Jonathan Haidt, “Applying labels to people can create what is called a looping effect. It can change the behavior of the person being labeled and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is part of why labeling is such a powerful cognitive distortion.” Psychology tells us that repetition can breed familiarity, but redundancy can also breed mesmerism and addiction. It only takes so many times of being told you’re sick, different or depressed before you start to believe it.

‘Something is wrong with everyone’ is the generally and commonly held belief. Beyond the construct of individual responsibility inherent in accepting this belief, the media and many corporations also perpetuate the notion that you are a slave to your body and your genes. Case in point, prescription drug advertisements that target anyone and everyone - surely, there must be at least one affliction that requires you taking a drug for the rest of your life! According to the British Medical Journal, for every dollar spent on research and development, pharmaceutical companies spend $19 on advertising! With our media inspired, drug-infused culture, is there any we wonder we have such a tragic and pronounced opioid epidemic?  

But this isn’t just the case with drugs. Heavy people are told to get their act together and shape up, yet they’re also fed a heavy dose of direct to consumer advertising promoting sugary beverages, fast food and outright junk. Children are told they deserve trophies and can be anything they want to be, all the while being held to models of unattainable physical and intellectual perfection.

We mass market toxins to our populace and wonder why we’re sick. At the same time, we market drugs, pills and potions that supposedly combat these ailments yet never quite heal or cure our afflictions. We accept our mental shackles (labels as addicts, sick or having the wrong genes) like sheep being led to the slaughter. The way out is to refute and stand up to such aggressive and misguided suggestions. You are your genes and your circumstances only up to a point.

Sick people need comprehensive care and fully functional medicine, not just the promise of quick fixes and pills. We should demand our doctors ask us about our lives, rather than demanding medications from them as we’re instructed to do on television. Heavy people need empathy and education, not the burden of shame or misguided allure of temporary ‘solutions.’ The poor and downtrodden need compassion, not contempt. Societal tragedies such as mass shootings and homelessness need to be treated as urgent mental health issues, not just chalked up as the new normalcy and the plight of someone else’s problem.

Being completely absorbed with our own self image, passions and desires leads to bondage. Breaking the chains of mental slavery means standing up for something greater than the self and feeding one’s own ego (there is a reason that the tenets of addiction treatment calls for the recognition of and reliance on a higher power). To heal and find wholeness, we must instead serve others and God first. As it says in Second Corinthians, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

We all bear some responsibility for standing up to the evils of slavery, be it mental or physical. The answers don’t come in convenient packages or pills. The answers don’t come in labeling and pointing fingers at each other. Real freedom comes when the hypnotic influence of false thinking is unmasked. Freedom is truth.