Tag: wars

JJ#3 – The Secret To It All

RJ Walters

I know most writers save their ultimate secrets until the end of the story. But, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I am different. I am going to give you the ultimate secret to life right now. 😉

Always Open Your Mind To Different Possibilities.

To me, being closed minded is the ultimate in stupidity. Yes, I realize that many of us are just too fearful to think there might be another way to live our lives. For some, it just takes a giant leap to actually make changes. I could say those people are in a rut, but I really think it comes down to courage to face today and tomorrow with hope instead of despair. That is a very hard thing for some to do.

I don’t care what you might say, none of us has a lock on life! We are all just playing it by ear as each year passed. Mostly we make mistakes, but sometimes we also do something right. We should pay attention to those “right” times to try to learn lessons from them for the challenging event.

Unfortunately, most of us instead concentrate on the stuff we screwed up and that teaches us not to take risks. Risks can result in failure and that is something we want to avoid to a paranoid degree. We learn from our mistakes so as to maybe do it right the next time. We don’t stagnate on an event in our past and live it for the rest of our lives. There are other possibilities that will result in a more joyous life.

When I see men of my generation still living the Vietnam war of more than 50 years ago, I shutter at a wasted life that is stuck in the past. But, it seems we make more guys, and now gals, like this with each of the wars we inevitably get ourselves into. When will we ever learn? Wasted lives due to unnecessary traumatic experiences is a true tragedy of my generation.

When I see so many senior citizens and even those younger think that it is better to try to bring back the past rather than to do something to make America better for tomorrow, I see helplessness. By their inordinate fear of the future they have put a heavy burden on their children and grandchildren to fix what our generation won’t.

The secret I gave you above is similar to one of my ten pillars of life.

Embrace Change

That is the way we move forward as people, communities, and nations. Whether you believe it or not, we are all in this together and we need to look out for each other, instead of considering almost everyone different from our, an enemy.

The Visions of Youth

RJ Walters

Generations

I can still remember my view of the 1960s when I was in college. They were primarily about how the old guys in Washington were messing things up. College campuses were raging with demonstrations against a senseless war in Vietnam that eventually cost us over 58,000 my generation. The Chicago police were beating up peaceful demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic convention. Inflation was running in double digits.  And then there were the gas shortages. There was a lot that we Baby Boomers were upset about and we were determined to make a change.

Fast forward to today and the same thing is happening, except this time we are the old guys screwing things up. We have now been mired down in wars in the Middle East for the past 20 years. It seems like an eternity. The rich have gobbled up a  giant share of the prosperity.  Job insecurity reigns. The idea of being loyal to one company and retiring with a pension is now non-existent.

So, it seems the same things are happening with the Millennials.  They are unhappy because of the way the old guys in Washington are messing things up. But this time the “old guys” are us Boomers.

The emerging divisions between the young and old may once again become a cultural fracture.  We Baby Boomers were an audacious bunch. We moved through society  doing a lot of grabbing. Wages were rising, cheap houses were readily available.  We may not have been rich, but at least we felt secure in our jobs. And, we really screwed up royally when we let a proudly ignorant, extreme narcissist take over the Oval Office. Too many Baby Boomers voted for him because they were fed up with politics and simply didn’t know how to fix the problems.

If only we had used some of that power we obtained  in our early years to help make our society stronger. We did a lot, but there was much we ignored in favor of self.  We could have done much more about climate change we were warned years ago about it. We could have done more to insure that our country followed the rest of the developed countries and provided health care for all our citizens.  We could have done more to regulate a runaway capitalism.

The young Democratic party hopefuls are shouting loudly about things they want to change.  There is Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez and her Green New Deal. There is 37 years-old Pete Buttigieg who thinks it’s time to bring common sense back into Washington. Almost half of the Democratic candidates are below 50. They want to take over deciding what America will look like in the Post-Trump years. I kinda think they should.

It’s time for us to let them try to do better than we Baby Boomers did.

Will Rogers – About Religious Beliefs

RJ Walters

Will Quote

A regular part of RJsCorner is going to be looking at Will Rogers quotes and seeing how they apply in today’s world. So, this is the first of many in that area.

Even  80 years ago it seems that there were more than a few who thought religions did more damage than they helped. I think what Will was saying is that “Bible thumpers,” and whatever they are called in the other religions, are the most intolerant of differences of faith.  They are just convinced that they are the only one who has got it right. This is what gets us into so many wars. The Sunni and Shiite quarrels cause thousands of deaths a year against each other and even to some of our boys and girls stationed over there trying futilely to control them.  Not that many years ago it was the Irish Catholics vs. the Protestants and so on, and so on… People disagreeing with others about religion seems to be the norm in our world and we can’t figure out how to get past that ignorance.

I am a big believer in “Coexist.” That is telling ALL the faiths to just play nice. If we could only manage that, war deaths could be almost eliminated.

Let the other fella believe what he wants as long as he lets you do the same. It couldn’t be simpler than that.

But sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to actually accomplish, aren’t they?

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