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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Being the Best You

Let's say money, time, consequences, and objections were not an issue for you.

What, then, would you do? Where would you want to go? To live? What job? What home would you have and where? What would you create? Who would you want in your life?

Can you answer those questions without using the words "as big as a Kardashian's", "like Beyoncé", or "where Rihanna goes"?

If you can't, you are not searching deeply enough.

I've written a lot about dreams and dreaming and will never knock it. I don't believe we should have identical dreams or the same as those of others that fell ass backwards into extreme lifestyles.

My time was spent  chasing a dog down the street, from my car, because I knew he would, eventually, end up in the street and injured, if not dead. I'm telling this because, I wasn't the only one out there trying to catch this little dog that fearfully ran from everyone. Cars stopped, people got out, people chased him for blocks, I followed him through one parking lot and into another. I tried enticing him with a bottle of water but he wasn't having it!

For a dog, the World on that street, stopped for a while. Despite trying to get home from work, people were taking time out to protect an innocent creature from harm. We all lost him. He escaped and went on the run to who knows where. He's still on the minds of many, no doubt. You don't have to be an animal-lover to appreciate the feeling of compassion.

The reason I mention this is because the experience was bringing out the best of each person that stopped, slowed, asked about him, went out of their way to track him, and are still thinking of him, today. It brought out that humanity for little creatures in us. We were showing the Good in us even for a few minutes. We were black, white, young, old, male and female, wealthy and not so wealthy, out there with one goal. We were trying to be helpful to an innocent creature in need.

It takes incidents like that to reveal just how good we really are, individually, and how great we can be together.

I came home to calls from Mom, ("CNN's unpaid on-the-spot-from-her-apartment Reporter"), asking if I was watching what's happening in Baltimore, Maryland on television. The news was going to bring on tears if I hadn't remembered that little dog and all those people.

Buildings burned, policemen and citizens were injured, there was rioting, looting, brick-throwing, games cancelled, businesses closing, and anger heating. The odd thing is the reason for the anger is because of the death of a man, a black man, whose family asked everyone not to react in this way. This was after the young man's funeral. Sigh. His funeral. If his own family is hurting worse than anyone but reasonable enough to say this to the public, why was Baltimore burning?

That's known as crowd mentality. It doesn't matter what color you are, all humans have behaved this way for a long time when grouped together. Just read or watch the movies of "Lord of the Flies". It's a great example of "groupthink". We can do damage. Or we can do Good when we gather. I thought of the dog again, and then I saw the images, from the light of day. The next day, "crowds" were in the streets, cleaning, and trying to repair their neighborhoods from the Evil that had set in the night before.

My opinion is the kettle finally boiled over because You, and You, and You, and I have not been the best we are capable of being. Because of what and who we are, we should be advocates of Peace and Love every day we step from our homes. We are called to be the Lights in this World. Freddie Gray's family has constantly stated there would be peaceful marches. Clergymen have made it known that they are even gathering gang members discussing Civil Disobedience in the way Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged. There is a way to be heard. There is a way to see justice done correctly.

Baltimore's riot was not the way.

The Personal "I" wanted to gather every child and elderly person who was frightened that night by the yelling, screaming, sirens, flames, pepper spray and crashes and reassure them the World doesn't have to be this way. I want to tell them it will pass. I want to assure them that there are people, of all races, who will take advantage of crowds and anonymity under the cover of darkness and cowardly covering their faces and loot, for no related reason, and there will be those that will take advantage to show it on television to make all people look badly upon and induce fear and loathing.

I want to tell each child to be the best You and it's safe to dream all the dreams you want despite what all the 'adults' are doing and saying.
 

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