"If you love someone, set them free.
If they come back to you, they're yours.
If they don't, they never were."
Richard Bach
Here endeth the lesson for the day; let us pray.
Ah, who am I kidding -- we're just getting started.
The thing is, America really started to get messed up the more we tried to control her.
I'm thinking back to my Sunday evening watching America: The Story of US, listening to the remarkable progress we made over such a short period of time -- sweeping changes, and ever so swiftly -- our enterprising spirits were flying high and wide. It was as if nothing could stand in our way, nor impede moving forward; all together, we were more brilliant than any one of us standing alone.
United, and how.
We broadened the definition of the United States of America to the hundredth degree.
We seem to forget that in order to be truly free, as a people -- we must be unhindered, unhinged, untied and unleashed -- in order to allow for each one of us to become all that we are meant to be.
I don't often get the chance to watch Oprah -- but as we approach her final days on the air, I'm trying to catch up with her; in a strange way, it is like an end of an era for me, too. Not that everything has to be about me...
I can only imagine, however, that I'm not alone with such a narcissistic sentiment -- given how for the last couple of decades, I know for a fact, many women in America were thinking the same thing, all at the same time -- and you can quote me on that.
As women, we have this inherent way to empathize, to get sucked into someone elses emotional world before we even say hello. As women, we feel everything, to our core -- so much so it hurts, while the next minute,we're all laughing and giggling like we have no idea what just happened. We are a whirlwind of sentiment at any given moment, over sometimes the slightest thing -- and just fuggedabout the big stuff, whoa nelly, gadzukes, zikes @%$&**...
Yesterday, it was Julia Roberts and Oprah; it was all about introducing Julia's latest movie, Eat Pray Love. The author of the book, Elizabeth Gilbert, joined them about half way through the show.
Now, I'm not sure how I missed this little number, but I can tell you, I'll be reading it in a heartbeat. I was struck by the writer having not a clue as to how her story could have gone "so viral," as she puts it. She was like, this is so strange -- how could my story, my pain, my spiritual journey of getting over a broken heart touch so many people??? Printed in 44 languages??? And now this, a movie???
And then, after seeing her "story" -- her real life -- come to life on the big screen (with Julia playing her part, no less) -- she's like, oh, I get it...
It may have been her personal thing at the root of all expression, but it was entirely universal; her story is much like every one's story. A broken heart is a broken heart. We can all touch that cord in one way or another -- and, it's what ultimately ties us all up together as human beings into a pretty little package, if you ask me.
Sometimes our lessons are difficult; sometimes we realize that what we thought was ours, and ours alone, never truly was; yet the freedom from just letting go of it -- allowing things to work out the way it's supposed to work out -- is what we must do, at times, if in fact we wish to save ourselves; otherwise, we are simply holding onto a dream, an illusion, something that really isn't there at all.
In this realm of letting our love flag fly free today, America could learn a lot from Richard Bach, and Gilbert for that matter.
We have come to a place, as a people, where we are trying to control nearly everything around us -- with regulation, with compensation, with corruption, with intimidation, with indoctrination, with redistribution. We are controlling everything with everything except the one true thing we really need -- our Constitution.
Whether it be a personal constitution we hold tightly to ourselves, or the collective Constitution we rooted an entire nation upon -- the ability to fly free, to live free and die free, under the rule of law -- not man -- is at the heart of everything that matters to us now. For our rule of law was connected to a higher law, a natural law, compounding our ability to succeed -- for we were endowed with unalienable rights and duties from God that no man could ever take away.
America was not created out of the bonds of love -- but from the freedom to become everything we were meant to be. America was successful at it for so long because, as a people, we were universally connected to this one spirit that united us all. That freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness comes to those left to their own duty and devices to create something out of nothing, grateful for where our purpose and strength and talents and success comes. We were fully, and utterly, united in this spirit every which way to Sunday; for on Sunday, we all gave thanks.
Lately, I keep hearing about what divides us -- the greatest of these falls victim to the loss of the melting into one pot that we used to be, morphing into polarized positions of what separates us instead. Immigrants now come to America not to unite with the whole -- but to fight with it, antagonize it, feed off of it and make a mockery of it...
What if in fact, the answer, is in the union?
Lately, I keep hearing of the "contagion" rolling out from Greece...moving towards other parts of Europe...crossing the pond and affecting our markets here.... with the possible economic devastation contributing to the fall of democracies far and wide...unless we get it under control...
What if in fact, the answer, is actually in the letting go?
Free Enterprise, the American made mentality made manifest by our founders, relies on each one of us, separately, to hold true to the principles of success -- requiring a healthy constitution, firm in faith, honor, charity, truth, and hard work; and if left to our own, to do just that, wouldn't we naturally all become, all together, a nation united in the same? Wouldn't we all naturally prosper?
It doesn't take regulation, control, a government telling us what to do and how to do it -- or going so far as covering for us when we don't do a darned thing whatsoever.
Sometimes our success relies on the government letting us go -- or in us, letting go of it.
If we are of sound mind, of conviction, of constitution, in keeping with a will to be of hearty contribution to society, everything will work out just fine -- there is nothing to fear -- all else shall be added.
Living in America is a personal journey, sure, but with universal consequences; it takes each and every one of us to do our part. But more than that, it challenges us to let ourselves go for the betterment of the whole. No other country in the world comes from such a place. We were the first.
Or shall I say, our founders were the first -- we just got lucky.
They gave us everything we ever really needed for our own personal journeys in the pursuit of happiness, and set us free -- now look at us, collectively, we are a real mess, a basket case, and in the middle of an entire box of tissues kind of afternoon. And I would be remiss if I didn't point out the obvious -- that being, we're on our own; what we do now is far be it in their control -- matter of fact, it never really was.
Therein lies the stark reality of letting something go.
Sure, there is risk involved; but real Americans wouldn't want it any other way.
Make it a Good Day, G
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