Sometimes?

Sometimes there are events that cause fear to rumble across the world. It’s unnerving. And unsettling. Yet often, those things are just ripples. Ripples are not waves. And they do not start tsunamis. Earthquakes do. (I might be pushing the limits of this metaphor but somehow this makes sense inside my pea-brain.) Let me explain.

What I think I’m trying to say is this: worrying about the state of the world is natural. I caution you about living in that state though. Feeling the ripples is inevitable. Just watch the news. There’s a lot of distress. It can be overwhelming. But imagining a tsunami is on its way is unhealthy. Sure, we all imagine the worst sometimes. It’s easy. Fear has a way of smudging up all that light shining through our windows so much so that we can’t see past our own fears. The Beatles said it so well: “yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away oh I believe in yesterday.” But was yesterday so much better? Are things really so much worse now in this world? Maybe not.

In fact, maybe, just maybe, this is the very, very best time EVER to be alive? Why?

1. We still have gasoline.

2. Nature. We still have it too.

3. iPhones.

4. Skype or facetime.

5. Pausing live tv. (Years ago, only superheroes could do that.)

6. Babies. People just keep having babies.

7. (Other people’s) babies are hilarious.

8. Some of us don't live in the United States where politicians are so disconnected from reality that they claim the right to shut down their democracy, put people out of work, waste millions of dollars and call it democracy but we still get to watch this gong show with the rest of world and laugh and shake our heads and feel deservedly superior. (Sorry U.S. friends but this is just nuts.)

9. The future. Imagine it. For example, what new ways to eat waffles will they invent next?

10. Most likely there are still more great surprises to come than there are annoying surprises like hair in your food.

Re: #10. Think about that. There are still more surprises. There truly are. Not long ago I boarded a plane from Germany to Italy. On that plane was my university roommate. We hadn’t seen each other for over a decade and we had no idea we were both traveling to the same country.

Wow.  Just wow.

Appreciate here. Appreciate now. Feel ripples but don’t imagine tsunamis.