Turning on the news was always a part of my morning ritual. Wake up, brush my teeth, and turn on the morning news. Lately though I find myself shying away from this ritual as more and more violence shakes our planet. So much blood has been spilt without justifiable reasons. Watching the news nowadays is like watching everything you hold dear fall apart.
This past week was a notoriously bad week on the news. Terror attack after terror attack, and a military coup thrown in just to mix things up. Seriously, what has this world come to? Everything going on has proven that our allusion of safety was shattered long ago. It’s maddening to think of just how vulnerable we are as individuals living in a free country, where the precautions taken to protect us are seen as an overstep of our liberties. Honestly though, what is one more metal detector if it means your kids will be safe at school, or that you don’t have to keep a wary eye open when you go out to the movies or to a club.
Is our freedom really free if the cost is fear? I for one do not want to live in fear. That’s the other issue with the news; they do nothing but promote fear. Vote for so and so, because if you don’t the opposition will do this, other countries are not safe so you should not leave, don’t let your daughters go out because rapists will get away with it. Fear has been programmed into our brains since day one but I just want to point out one very important detail that everyone seems to overlook; this country was not built of fear, it was built on courage. Courage to stand up for what you believed in, and for what you know in your hearts to be true: that all men were created equal, and have certain natural rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
By fear occupying media outlets and forcing its way into the mentality of the American people, we have completely lost all sense of what it truly means to have those natural rights. A life is no life when lived in fear, Liberty is worth nothing when paired with paranoid thoughts, and the pursuit of happiness is unattainable considering the clan meeting going on down the road. We as the American people have found ourselves so lost in this whirlwind of fear that we are hopelessly drowning with no clear sign of help in the future. So the next time you turn on the news take a deep breath and remember that you can choose what to fear, and what you can work towards fixing. This world we live in has gone through so much that it is in need of a little fixing. The best way to do that fixing is through love. Don’t take my word for it, let’s not forget that love thy neighbor speech we all got in Sunday school. They kind of had a point. What better way to combat hate then with love. Love is the only way to cure all the hatred that has consumed our globe. With love, a little faith, trust and Pixie dust our courage might yet go a long way.
