It’s 4:11 am and I am still awake. I have been thinking about almost everything you can think of. Sometimes, at this hour, I begin to feel the world’s weight of sadness and terror upon my restless shoulders. Once that happens, I feel stressed and wonder “Is this really the world we live in?”

From young children in war torn traumatic life-and-death experiences, to world hunger, to racist/sexist charged assaults and physical attacks towards innocent people, police brutality in America, from mother-nature’s deadly forces of natural disasters to man-made disasters, to the refugee crisis, climate change, stigma in mental health disorders, and above all the excruciating tension that is everywhere around the globe due to hatred and fear (purposefully instigated with the help of the media)… Yeah, I keep thinking about these issues.

The worst part of it all is that I feel very helpless and useless. I mean, what can I do? I’m not a “special” person who can rally change in the world. I haven’t even done so in my community. I never knew just how painful it is to feel helpless. I also never knew that growing up, becoming an adult with abstract thinking and solid intellectual functioning, would cause me to be so scared and overwhelmed because: I think and think and think about all of this almost all the time. I wish there was a cure for the world’s atrocities and tragedies. I wish there was someway I could ease the world’s pain… even though some people (the powerful people) feel Earth and humanity is Ay-Okay.

Side-note: I haven’t written on this blog for quite some time… 

With all of this free time now, I’ve gotten lazy but overthink. What a terribly dangerous combination … sitting and watching Netflix while being a constant world worrier. I wish someone could worry with me or better yet help me come up with solutions to help humanity heal. We may never be able to rid the world of hatred, sickness, or war… but we have a duty to heal those who have been affected by such things.

I remember when I was very young I had a fear of becoming an “adult”, not because of the pending responsibilities, or that there would be less “fun” and more “work”, or because things get tough but because i m a g i n a t i o n seems to drift away and disappear when we’re a grown up. When that’s gone, it’s very challenging to be able to think outside the box. The world needs out of the box thinkers, especially now more than ever!

And now, I’m reminiscing about my own life, forgetting about the horrendous world we live in. I remember when I was about 7 we had moved back to the Chicago suburbs and I had a playground set. I would go to the swings and go up and down, back and forth, over and over not going too high or too low. I would look up at the sky, feel the warmth of the sun’s rays upon my face, and I felt so free, safe, and at ease. I never felt that way after, not like that. And then, I’d carefully slow down and get off the swings and hope the one day, some day, I wouldn’t have to be an only child anymore. And years later, I now have 3 siblings. Funny how life works.

But this post really shouldn’t be about me, but the point of that story I guess is to illustrate that I doubt many of us or the new generations have felt that ease, that peace, that I did at 7. We’re always in a state of GO and STOP, do this NOW, beware of DANGER, stay SAFE, and be careful. When I was younger, I was taught “Do not talk to strangers”. However, these days, seems like it’s not only strangers that are out to get you or hurt you, it could be almost anybody or anything. How scary is that? Or at least, that’s the way the media likes to play it. That your friendly Muslim neighbor isn’t actually friendly, they actually don’t like you they’re dangerous. Seriously?

I’m taking a deep breath to ease the worry, the anxiety, the scary stuff… what can I say, I think too much before I sleep, I mean, it’s 4:32 and my mind is still racing.

ON THAT NOTE… I’d like to write one last thing: If you know how to imagine a world of love, you have an obligation to make it so.

Good night to all,

Dana