Sunday Story...Let Them Eat Cake

Sunday Story…Let Them Eat Cake

There is an ancient Chinese proverb (or curse) that says something like: “May you live in interesting times.” Fortunately or unfortunately, we are living in interesting times. This may be a curse or a blessing depending on your attitude and which side of the fence you are sitting on.

Danger and opportunity often go together. Turbulence creates change and uncertainty and in that space there is the chance for great gain and great loss. It all depends on what you do with it. Do you pull into your shell and hide or do you strike boldly brimming with confidence and moving forward with an attitude of success?

All that being said…the title today is a reference to Marie Antoinette, the queen of France right before the French Revolution…when told the peasants had no bread she is reported to have said…”Let them eat cake.” I imagine the years before, during and after the French Revolution were interesting times.

What if the years we are living in right now are the years before the next revolution? What if this time is the incubation of an explosive new era in our history? What if the shifts and changes we are experiencing both here and globally portend a massive transformation in how we humans live here on this planet?

If you were living in France in the years before the revolution what would you have done? Would you have fled the country? Where would you invest your money? What would you counsel your children to do? What would you tell your aging parents to do? What would you do?

We no longer live in the same world that existed when I was a child. That much should be obvious to all of us. Really the changes are coming faster and faster. Knowledge is doubling faster and faster. Technology is running far ahead of our ability to absorb it. The rules that most of us grew up following are no longer applicable…study hard, go to college, get a good job, raise a family, put money away for retirement, retire, live off your retirement, die. Invest in real estate…they aren’t making any more of it and it never loses value. No, my friends the rules have and are changing as we speak.

What are we going to do when we don’t know the rules anymore? I suspect we are all going to make up new rules, and the day of an overriding group of “rules” is gone. The prize is going to go to those people who are willing to strike quickly, shift their focus on the fly, and think way outside any currently existing boxes.

So what to do about the Marie Antoinette’s of our world? The leaders who think the rest of us should just suck it up and work harder for whatever crumbs they allow us to find? Politicians who think of my purse and yours as a fatted cow ready for their taking? Maybe it’s time we, metaphorically speaking, lopped off their heads. Maybe we should get involved in our communities on the most basic level.

The only power politicians have is the power we give them. When you wake up from a bad dream you might be short of breath and scared. But slowly you realize the dream is not real in this conscious world. It is time to wake up from the dream. It is time to wake up and take back our power. Turn to your neighbor and start taking interest in them. Look over at the park and start taking care of it yourself instead of letting some politicians decide when the lawn gets mowed, the trash taken out, or the bathrooms cleaned.

We live in this world; our children will live in it after you and I are gone. If we live now like there is no tomorrow, someday we might actually be right. It is past time for us to stand up and start taking back our power and our rights as humans…the right to raise our children to be healthy and happy, the right to live in a world that sustains us, the right to choose what our happiness is going to look like, the right to pass on to our progeny a world that will sustain them as well. After all we are only borrowing it from future generations.

It is not OK for our governments to take from us in the form of regulations and taxes. And it is not OK for us to take from governments some weird sense of entitlement that allows them to take care of us at every turn. You are a living breathing powerful human, capable of taking control of your life, helping your neighbors and promoting peace in your own life. You have this ability; it is innate in your humanity. Quit giving up your power because you are too lazy or too unfeeling or too something. Get it back by getting involved. Start speaking your mind, you will be surprised who agrees with you. After all, if you don’t stand for something, you will stand for anything.

It is time for us to forge a new life, a new way of being in the world. For far too many years we have allowed things to pull us apart into various factions. It is time to get back to the most basic units…family, the street you live on, and the town you live in. This is where you can make an impact. This is where you can see, feel and taste the work you are putting into building the life you want to enjoy. And it is the place your children can reap the benefits of your efforts.

Start a garden and share the bounty. Rent a movie and invite your friends. Cook dinner for someone. Turn off the TV and talk to the other people in the house. Look around and do something that will shift something in the world you live in, the one you see every day. Or not…pull your head into your shell and hope when you stick your neck out again there isn’t someone waiting to lop your head off.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

Follow me at:
Twitter --- http://m.twitter.com/jmariotti
FaceBook --- John Mariotti
Blog Spots…John Mariotti
http://feel-good-friday.blogspot.com/
http://sunday-stories.blogspot.com/