I haven’t been walking my talk.

Related: This shit works.

As of Saturday morning, February 5, 2022, my nerves were worn to a frazzle with anxiety over national affairs.  Two very recent headlines illustrate the matter:

• Steve Bannon calls Mike Pence a ‘stone-cold coward’ for saying Trump was ‘wrong’ to claim the VP could’ve overturned the 2020 election results
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  Pence had the balls to stand up (a) for the Constitution, (b) to a mob chanting, “Hang Mike Pence,” and (c) against Trump’s bullying.  I’m not clear on why anyone should attend to anything Bannon says, or why Insider chooses to amplify his speech.
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• GOP censures Cheney, Kinzinger as it assails Jan. 6 probe
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  Words fail me.

This is like the confusion that reigned while Trump was in office.  Almost every day, some new expression came from the White House that was almost impossible to believe.  I never paid very close attention very long, because I did not want to stew in negativity.

Who sows chaos?

In last week’s post, I concluded that those who love lies are motivated by malice.  Malice has been central to Trump’s movement from the very beginning.  On the one hand, I am not happy to attribute malice to such a large chunk of the population; but this conclusion does provide a degree of certainty, as contrasted with constant uncertainty and hand-wringing over “WTF is wrong with these people?”  On the other hand, I have no mind to dwell on this, much, either, lest I stew in negativity.

I need to take care of me.

My nerves are a frazzle because I haven’t been doing that.

I feel sure I’ve said the things I am about to, before, however, I’ve not been able to find them; at least, not in these same words.

Pressing “reset”

The Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and
the wisdom to know the difference.

I need to set my attention on the here and now, and the things I personally can do here and now; and let go of all else.

There is nothing I can do to change the events of national politics.  As angry as I may choose to be about them, they will not change.  I am powerless as to those things; I am powerless as to anything but the things I personally can do, here and now.

From a previous post:

I stretch out my arms like Jesus on the cross, and find there — from the farthest fingertip of my right hand to the farthest fingertip of my left — the limits of (1) the things I can change, (2) my responsibility, and (3) my power.

Everything else is OUT OF MY HANDS, literally OUT OF REACH.

What IS at hand, what IS in reach — there are the things I can change.  The things I can do something about.  Where I have power — and responsibility.

One will feel powerless, and weak, if one refuses to accept the things one cannot change — the things that are literally out of reach.  My sense of wholeness, and of having power over anything, power to do anything, depends on keeping my attention here and now, and on the things I personally can do.

My sense of wholeness, my peace of mind, even the possibility of being happy:  these are crucial to actually getting anything done that I actually can do; to managing my own affairs, my own life; to my interactions with the people I meet in the flesh from day to day.  And those things are my responsibility.  If I am to have a positive effect on the world, it is with those people, in this place, that I will.

Now maybe I can get my life back in order.