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  • Defeating the heebie jeebies
  • Meet my inner soldier
  • Violent crime is down fiftyfold, war is also declining

Happy New Year!

2014 was a lot rougher than many people expected, for that matter, so was 2013. One might ask, “Will 2015 be the same and can I make it through another year of this?”

I’m hearing from many people who’ve run out of steam. Best case scenario, it feels like things are just kind of flat. Worst case, it feels like there’s little hope. Many people tell me they often feel, “What’s the use?” Even those who feel hopeful and engaged in their lives confess to perplexing periods when it suddenly feels oddly hopeless and useless.

Maybe it’s just the winter doldrums; maybe it’s solar activity or scalar waves, cosmic output or the tenuous world economics. Likely, it’s all the above and then some. Many factors come together now and result in inner and outer wobble that can be accompanied by gloom, fatigue, bad attitude and anxiety.

There are many things that help when the heebie jeebies bog us down, and you’re using as many of them as you can. Breath work, meditation, prayer, laughter, friends and family, a good clear sense of purpose, good diet, a little exercise, extra rest, more play – these, and other things like them, are helpful.

Also needed, I find, is a frequent reality check: The fact is, I’m doing what I can to help how things are, but things are how they are. These are the times we are in. We aren’t here for some other time that’s either past or future. Time to stop worrying about it and get on with living it, tough as it is. No more time for sniveling and trying to get out of it. Time to stand up straight and soldier on. As in “call on your spiritual warrior.” Your inner hero.

I’m speaking of the part of you that can be counted on to slog through, carry on, muscle up and regain lost ground. This part of you is less daunted to realize these are simply not going to be the best of times. This part of you knows the long haul can be traveled, and is worth it. It knows how to dig deep, face the worst, and advance.

This part of you has resources you may not be aware of. Soldiering on is not easy work, it’s hero work, but it’s a very good antidote to doldrums, feeling stuck and so forth. Soldiering on, with positive and creative determination, is a number one tool right now.

Good news is another great antidote. My number two tool is taking in good news, and sharing it. That helps me realize things are not perfect but they’re changing in the right direction. So I’ll end by sharing the following two-minute case for optimism about the state of affairs in the world, by Steven Pinker.

I found it on the December take out bag for Chipotle Mexican Grill. First let me say that I love Chipotle because they’re a company looking for ways to do things better in business. If you look them up on line, you may be impressed like I am with how they think about things from fresh and local ingredients to cultivating new thought. I pay attention to who gets my $dollar$, because it’s a small thing that makes a big difference. Chipotle gets my fast food $dollar$.

In the Chipotle author series for cultivating thought, they share author Steve Pinker’s wonderful two minute case for optimism. For instance, violent crime is down fifty fold since the middle ages, he tells us. Short and to the point, it delivers a great dose of “things are better than they seem.”

Enjoy, and if you get your Google on today, you might look up how much worse things used to be! That’ll make for a more optimistic feeling about 2015.

HAPPY NEW YEAR and lots of love,
XOMa HuLiLi

PS: Next week… my thoughts and ideas about what’s up in 2015

 

A Two-Minute Case for Optimism

by STEVEN PINKER

It’s easy to get discouraged by the ceaseless news of violence, poverty, and disease. But the news presents a distorted view of the world. News is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen. You never see a TV crew reporting that a country isn’t at war, or that a city hasn’t had a mass shooting that day, or that millions of 80-year-olds are alive and well.

The only way to appreciate that state of the world is to count. How many incidents of violence, or starvation, or disease are there as a proportion of the number of people in the world? And the only way to know whether things are getting better or worse is to compare those numbers at different times: over the centuries and decades, do the trend lines go up or down?

As it happens, the numbers tell a surprisingly happy story. Violent crime has fallen by half since 1992, and fifty fold since the Middle Ages. Over the past 60 years the number of wars and number of people killed in wars have plummeted. Worldwide, fewer babies die, more children go to school, more people live in democracies, more can afford simple luxuries, fewer get sick, and more live to old age.

“Better” does not mean “perfect.” Too many people still live in misery and die prematurely, and new challenges, such as climate change, confront us. But measuring the progress we’ve made in the past emboldens us to strive for more in the future. Problems that look hopeless may not be; human ingenuity can chip away at them. We will never have a perfect world, but it’s not romantic or naive to work toward a better one.

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