Yesterday I while scrolling facebook, I bumped into a video about school shooting awareness in the US. It was a bunch of kids talking about how much they loved cool stuff that their parents had bought them, and then the kids using the stuff to try to help themselves during a school shooting:
A kid who is very happy with his new skateboard uses it to break a window so he can escape
A girl who wanted knee high socks uses them to make a tourniquet
A girl who finally got her phone texts her mom that she loves her before the lights go off
It affected me when I saw it.
And it affected me this morning.
It is not just the video of course. You don't solve this problem by not looking at facebook anymore. It is a whole realization. I live in a low state of fear.
In this low state of fear, I am not aware enough to work through it or seek help, but it is constantly in the background affecting me slowly but surely.
I am on the freeway in the mornings thinking of how dangerous freeways are. I am taking three different children to three different school campuses and that SCARES me of the possibilities unending.
I am scared because I live in the United States in California, and it is a dangerous time to be here.
I didn't just gloss the feeling over, or turn a smile upside down. I let myself feel the emotion. I let the tears run down my face, I let all of this energy release, I let it go (or at least started to)
This fear started when I was in high school, and Columbine happened.
My English Teacher stood in front of the classroom and went into a rant.
The principal wants me to empathize with YOU? Why you? You are graduating soon, out of danger. It's ME who should be worried, things will only get worse from me, and look at me. I'm a HUGE target. Empathize with you? Maybe of the fact that you will be sending your kids to school in these shitty circumstances
And today, because I let myself feel the fear and explore it, I was able to pinpoint it, and see a where, of where it came from.
Image by Jonny Lindner from Pixabay
Mr. B was just having a bad fear-filled day himself, but here are some other truths. Truths that I know in my heart.
Poverty and stress level statistics aside. My family has more wealth now than it ever has, and most of the people around me are doing a lot better too.
Western Medicine vaccinating us to subject us to worldly domination aside, we are the healthiest we have ever been. At least in my family, and the families that surround me, we are living longer more fulfilling lives.
GMO's and Pesticides aside - we have an abundance of food, AND it gets easier every day to get fresh organic produce.
Mass Shootings aside: If we recognize that there is a major civil war brewing in the US (because people fighting against their people is a civil war and these shootings are a civil war!) and you recognize historical timelines, we are living in the more safest of times.
So yes, statistics are scary. But if you flip statistics, you find something interesting.
Because yes, statistics like 1 in 7 people go hungry worldwide are horrible. But... 6 out of 7 people are well fed, is a pretty darn good global statistic.
Just because we could do better doesn't mean we are living in the worse of times.
When feeling fears, we just need a little perspective.
And a lot of Trust and Faith.
