As humans, we all want predictability. We want stability and certainty. We want to be able to relax into a sense of safety. From the moment we leave our mother’s womb, we seek the comfort of her breast. Every time we move away from it and the big, wide world frightens us, we wish to return to it. We need a sense of security, however false or temporary it may be.
After we have reached adulthood we can no longer return to our mother’s protective arms. We must navigate the often treacherous landscape of life on our own. For those whose mothers have provided them with a healthy reserve of esteem and whose fathers had stood as loving role models, it may have been easy to attain success, his achievements giving him a sense of power. She may have discovered an inner source of strength, or she may have relied on a marriage to provide the safety she craved. After some time, life’s ever changing movement may have brought the carefully constructed life tumbling down. On a personal level this happens every day to individuals. The person now feels that he is a victim. He may turn to cigarettes, alcohol, drugs (or all three) to replicate the confidence he felt as a child. She may look for an escape or manifest cancer or sink into a deep depression, not knowing how to find the loving arms that once comforted her.
Today, it is more than our personal lives crumbling beneath our feet. It is the collective lives and the masses of people who have lost control and their safety net has disappeared. The sun is still rising and setting. The weeks march onward, but the atmosphere has changed. Our belief that we could control our destinies has been thwarted by an unseen enemy. It is the isolation and the uncertainty that allows fear its stranglehold on millions of people. We had been lured into a false sense of assurance and narrowed vision. If we observe the life around us; however, we see birds nesting and tending their young. They do not concern themselves about tomorrow. We see daffodils pushing up towards the sunlight. We see the ever-changing clouds. We must become like them – accept the moment, accept not knowing what tomorrow may bring. Tomorrow will evolve based on what we think and believe and do today. What can we do today? We can be content with uncertainty. We can spread love, light, joy, and hope today.
