We're not as helpless as we may feel

We all know the truth of it. I know I’ve made the point before. It feels like it ought to be in bold print. Everyone, every single person you see or meet, is fighting one or more battles you will never know about. I have a few of my own, and so do you.

There are Mega Battles

  What kind of battles are we fighting, you ask? Actually, there are more battlefields than we can possibly list. But consider just a few of the many candidates. America may be the home of the free and the brave. But we are also home to staggering homelessness, a nearly unimaginable addiction crisis, a hit and miss mental health landscape, and a faltering health-care system….all of it framed by massive debt.

This very morning a USA Today article stated bluntly that the US is the most dangerous place in the developed world to be pregnant. Not simply inconvenient, but downright dangerous.

Meanwhile, we watch from the sidelines as our representatives do their own thing…… pandering to Big Pharma and insurance interests, filling our prisons at a rate seen nowhere else in the civilized world, while failing to acknowledge, let alone address, the most pressing environmental concerns mankind has ever seen. And in the process they seem to have enlisted the fox to guard the henhouse.

At the same time, at every turn, it seems that our elected leaders have also failed to address many of the mundane, every-day matters that most impact their constituents. So, while they fight their partisan battles, holding our very government hostage, you and I are lest to confront our own conflicts.

And there are our own Micro Battles

As mentioned before, each of us has our own menu of personal ‘battles’ to fight. And why not? Those obstacles are, after all, a part of what we call life. Whatever their form, no one escapes them.

Still, in the end it is not enough to simply point out how our leaders have failed us. Not when every person we see or meet……every life that crosses our path……the ones we love and the ones we hate…….is struggling in ways we will never know. The battles you and I fight rarely make the news. They are personal, and the battlegrounds on which we wage those wars are where we live, work, and live our lives. 

Yet we have weapons of our own

You and I cannot legislate the answers our legislators have failed to provide. But we can do our part, in ways that won’t make headlines, but are perhaps the most effective response of all.

Pointing fingers and shouting our hastily-formed criticism rarely helps. On the other hand, rather than looking away a thoughtful, person to person response, that allows our nonjudgemental empathy to shine through, is often the best, sometimes the only, gift we have to give to those in need. Best of all, that personal, caring contact is the most appropriate gift for any season.

Merry Christmas, all year long.