I feel an Armageddon ambiance in people nowadays in social media concerning the race to the white house.
Paranoid, alarmist and desperate calls to action bombard my Facebook feed, all trying to persuade me to vote for one candidate or another, or neither!
So yesterday I finally decided to respond to one outcry of hopelessness by suggesting we take it a day at a time and try to stay positive… the comeback was lengthy and aggressive. Again my answer was to remain hopeful, but this only ignited another upset person that joined in to cheer for the message of doom.
It is so easy to get lost in hatred. It is so easy to give yourself to depression and desperation, to the point where it is difficult to find your way home. Nowadays rage is so contagious and degenerative, I think it is far worst than my Multiple Sclerosis.
And yet we expect peace to happen in the world, we wonder why the world will not obtain it… and I am here to say: There is no peace in the world because WE do not unleash it. Peace is within each and every one of us.
In my MS mind, I keep replaying an interview with a 2016 Olympian, a Syrian refugee, a beautiful 18-year-old girl who is a brave swimmer. She spoke about training in a gym that was constantly bombarded, she described how the booms made holes in the ceiling where she could see the sky… and she just kept swimming. Mardini said: “When you have problem in your life, that doesn’t mean you need to sit down and cry like babies. The problem was the reason why I am here, and why I am stronger and I want to reach my goals.”
I am astonished! But that is what people with diseases do too, we keep going, we adapt to changes in lifestyle, we fight to continue, to heal. The human race is privileged to be equipped with: “RESILIENCE,” let’s trust it and make good use of it. We have always survived recessions, epidemics, famine, slavery, genocides, and wars. Let us not forget how tough and brave we are.
The world will not end, regardless who reaches the white house; we will endure, we will survive and rise above all imaginable chaos, we will rebuild and flourish and shine with triumph! We have done it before; we will do it again because that is what we do.
If I can stay calm knowing my own body is my own enemy, that my own cells attack my own neurons and that I hold my own end… than others can take this political storm a bit more calmly too.
EVERYONE: Breathe! Love! And never stop swimming!
