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Looking Within
Word count for this week's article: 411
Approximate time to read: About 1.6 minutes
In last week’s message, I urged readers to vote. Of course, I have no idea if my exhortation had any effect on my readership (I highly doubt it did), but on a national level, as a percentage of registered voters, it was the second highest turnout since 1914.
That’s good! More people exercising their right to choose who represents them means the system is working. But obviously, as is the case with every election, the segment of the electorate that lost is disappointed. But that’s the way it is in every contest, right? One team wins the World Series and one team loses; one person wins Wimbledon and one person loses.
Whether the election went your way or not, the key is to follow Kipling’s advice “to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . ." There was no social media in Kipling’s day, but that is where many are losing their head these days.
And it’s not just politics. If you would like to shave a few points off your IQ, just tune in to sports radio and you will hear people losing their head, all over something that is supposed to be a diversion.
We as a society have stopped looking within for answers, and I’m not the only one to notice it. Entrepreneur Andy Frisella said “People will spend months arguing about who should lead the country while spending zero time considering how they could better lead themselves, and that is a much bigger problem.”
We are responsible for our lives, whether we want to admit it or not; not the government, not our employer, not our spouse. We are. While many factors may influence our lives, those factors are not responsible for our life.
There are numerous things that happen to us that are totally out of our control. The only thing that is 100% within our control is how we react to those things. Viktor Frankl called it the last of the human freedoms, the ability to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.
So rather than bemoaning the outcome of an event that you had little to no control over, it is better to look within to see what you indeed do have control over, and it is a lot (including whether or not to purchase life insurance 😊).
P.S. Happy 251st birthday to the United States Marine Corps, founded this day in 1775 in Tun’s Tavern, Philadelphia.
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