Happy Hump Day, All!
Yes, it is Wednesday again … How are you holding up? As for me, I am in the “one day at a time” mode! You know, the events in the Middle East and their “local terrorist” organizations … even North Africa … have caused the political world to go into a tail spin. Nations are choosing sides, kidnappings and killings continue and there is little … better said … NOTHING that any of us regular folk can do. Do you feel “powerless”? Do you want to make a difference? After all, most of that stuff is “way over there” … for now!
The powerlessness I often feel as this “funky” world turns is something I personally utilize to “bring people together”. Many of us have an energy that we haven’t tapped in to because we just “follow the leader”, do what others say … and do … often without question. Others of us continue to challenge the leaders from our “local soap boxes” where only our friends and neighbors hear us. Others have built their “soap boxes” on social media, as have I, to try to reach people and educate them … or taint them with our rhetoric … again, to see things as “we” do. I continue to seek peace in my own life as well as non-violence. Just yesterday morning, I heard this banging on a door on the second floor where I live. It was 4:37am and I wasn’t about to lay there until the banging stopped. I knew who it was … the neighbor’s drunken boyfriend whose clothes are set outside her door whenever he comes back late … and drunk. Once they even had the police come! He was back there the next day!! We had a confrontation, I threatened to call the police … he left running until about 7:30am after I had been able to get a few more hours of sleep. When he saw me, come out, he jumped into his car and left …
Monday night when I was on my way to yoga, I was trying to catch a few minutes of the USA vs Ghana but I needed to go to yoga. I got to the gym and there were like 30 people near the juice bar in front of the television watching the match!! One of the receptionist there at LA Fitness, Raiza, who has also become another one of my younger friends, is from Brazil. She is my “go to person” for information about the matches. The manager there, Henry, is another friend I have made over the two years I have been attending the LA Fitness on Cypress Creek near where I live. He is the one responsible for letting us watch the matches there, as he did during basketball season, as we went in and out of the gym to keep ourselves in shape. It was so nice to see people coming together like that, spontaneously, watching and cheering for the USA!
Have you done anything lately to “bring people together”? Try it … you might like it. Enjoy the FIFA 2014 World Cup Games, too! Thanks for reading, folks.
Peace,
John I. Cook
Educational Excellence 