"THERE IS NO RESCUE PARTY OUT LOOKING FOR YOU!"
We're living through the most disorienting societal moment since World War II. Some one referred to this generation as the "Rattled Generation." Almost nobody in a position of power is explaining very adequately just why we are rattled, much less what to do about it.
You could say that I am also a victim of this chaotic government and our disoriented society, but from my own past experiences, I do have a couple of suggestions about what you can do about surviving the present chaos and disorientation in which so many seem to be drowning!
I believe you need to have what I call "your own fire escape experience!" When I was in college, I was bashful, backward, scared and unhappy. I thought that if I could just find a way to change the world, I could become a happier more confident person. One day, on a fire escape, I remember reading something that changed my life. I realized that I had become, in the words of George Bernard Shaw, "a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world would not devote itself to making me happy!" I decided that day to "grab the bull by the horns" and do something about it even if it killed me! I decided that I needed to change me and quit waiting to be rescued by somebody else! I started doing just that and I am still working my program!
I realized soon afterwards, in the words of Al Franken, the comedian, that "it is easier to put on slippers than it is to carpet the world." In other words, it is easier to control oneself than try to control everybody else! The realization that there was no rescue party out looking for me hit me right between the eyes. If there was to be a rescue party coming to save me, then it was up to me! I had to be that rescue party!
You control you! Those are the three most important words I can recommend to you. Say them to yourself every morning. You don't control the economy. You don't control AI. You don't control the president! You don't control the stock market or group chat! However, you DO control YOU!
You control when you wake up, what you eat, whether you exercise, whether you pray, whether you meditate, whether you take five minutes to think, what you read, watch or listen to, how you treat the person in front of you, whether you send a text, make a call, apply for the job or show up for your friend.
Every one of those is a decision. Every one of your decisions makes you a little better — or a little worse. Nobody else can make your decisions for you. So when it gets hard, control what you can control. AI can't do that for you! I can't do that for you! You can do that for yourself! That realization is quite liberating, even empowering.
You can choose where you get engaged in life and how you get engaged. Nothing can make you feel better than being with others and especially with helping them. Find people who also want to help others and throw yourselves into action. If you are truly worked up about politics, don't vent! Volunteer! Vote! Use social media to spread your smarts and your sanity. Worried about poverty? The environment? Homelessness? Decide to make a difference. You can do something, even if it's small. Don't wait till you feel like it, just go ahead and start doing it and then you will feel better!
Not too long ago, I woke up one day thinking that there was little I could do about generational poverty, Christian/Muslim relations and immigration issues all over the world, except to feel bad and frustrated. Then an opportunity came to help finish a grade school for a Catholic Bishop in Tanzania that I was introduced to one day. He wanted to address all three of those problems in his diocese in Tanzania through offering education at a very early age by opening a new primary school for local Christian, as well as Muslim, children. All of a sudden, I realized that I could do nothing about those issues on a global scale, but I could do something to change the lives of a few children, in one small place, in one African country, on the other side of the world!
I went into action, using my blog! In a few months, I had accepted enough donations, from sharing details online about the project and its goals with enough others, to finish the school. It is scheduled to open with four of its six classrooms in July 2026 - and hopefully the other two in early 2027.
Worst case? If I failed, I realized that I would be too busy to fixate on the craziness around me that I hear about every night on the evening news. Best case? I realized that I had an opportunity to change the lives of a bunch of children I will never meet. Their lives will be changed through the education they will receive, their children's lives will be changed maybe for generations into the future, that little community will be changed for the good because the individual lives of the people living there will have been changed for the good! Through education, families will be able to escape from the cycle of generational poverty. Muslim children will remember the people who gave them an education and maybe local Christians and Muslims, at least, will live in peace with one another going forward. Then no one from that area of Tanzania will need to migrate, but can thrive right there in that community. I was right! I could change the world of a few people at least in one small spot on the other side of the world!
In conclusion, I offer a few more simple tips: live simply, monitor your intake of social media, realize that modern media is full of falsehood, anger and poor examples of success so don't believe everything you hear or read, test everything for truth, don't blindly follow the herd and, lastly, decide on the tried and true values you want to live by and stick to them regardless of what everybody else is doing! Even if you are part of "the rattled generation," you do not have to be rattled! Just change you and the way you look at things and help yourself become "unrattled!"
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