If you have access to any form of modern technology, you already know that you are continuously bombarded with other people’s opinions on everything from religion to politics to relationships to cooking to heaven-knows-what-else. It can feel overwhelming just trying to cope with the overload of information, let alone the torrents of passionate emotions that all forms of media seem to love to promulgate; and that’s not even factoring in trying to figure out who is telling the truth and who is lying. Personally, the stress of dealing with all this is why I spend at least one day a week completely disconnecting from my cell phone and all electronic communications and screens.
In addition to “input overwhelm”, we are also bombarded with horrific and terrifying acts of senseless violence, such as what we witnessed just this past weekend. Being human, such things frighten us. Of course we want to do something to help, but we seem so small and insignificant that we feel powerless to effect any real change, so incapable of making a difference in anything of real importance.
So much is unfolding at the national and international levels of our world that we can be engulfed by our distress in the face of it all; but the truth is, that is not where you and I exist, and that is not where we carry on our daily lives. Where we really live is in our own day-to-day world: our family, our friends, our work places, and our own neighborhoods. That is what impacts us directly, and that is where we can make a difference. You and I do not decide who becomes our next President. You and I are not in charge of ending the ceaseless conflicts taking place all over the globe. We have no power to fix the economy. We cannot make people stop using drugs or hurting one another. “The world” doesn’t even know – and will likely never know – that we were even here.