“Your beliefs are your actions. What you say is just what you think.”
To continue with yesterday’s thread with some counterclaim for the argument about struggles, sometimes the struggle is me and you. As I spoke briefly about yesterday and I would like to elaborate about today, sometimes I created struggles in my past that my present self still gets to handle. If you don’t know my struggles over the past few years then we are definitely not as close as you believe. But, upon leaving one school and transferring to one closer to my home, there were many difficulties with the last pregnancy of my wife and the birth of my youngest son. It is well documented through social media with pictures and the whole thing. And it was a tough time for me eight years ago. Not making any excuses for who I was only trying to provide context. So, I lashed out at the world and asked a lot of the pointless “why” questions and worried about the future while wreaking havoc on my present because that is how I chose to handle problems. I chose to throw pain and become numb which was a coping mechanism I got somewhere along the way. It was not something I learned from my folks or from my family, it was just the easier way to handle problems than choosing differently.
So, I do understand the other side of all this misery and messiness. I was a complete mess and I wasn’t looking at making any great strides until the lockdowns happened fourteen days ago. And then reality hit me that my family might be unable to eat. What was I doing to provide stability and safety for my family? Where were my libertarian ideals inside of Libertarian politics? Where was my plan?
And for three years now, the change has started. I was out of shape both mentally and physically. I was playing the victim when I should have been surviving. And that is what I am now. A survivor of the state. I spent too long worrying about politics when I should have been moving my needle toward responsibility, toward sustainability, toward freedom. I used to be obsessed with the next pointless news story, the next pointless media campaign, the next pointless political struggle. I wanted to get on here and shove my truth in everyone’s face. I wanted to be right because that was all I had. The activity that made me feel like a winner when, in fact, I was just a loser caught up in the system.
And for three years now, I started working out my body. I got my muscles into shape and my organs into shape and that got my thinking into shape. I started drinking plenty of salt water. I add a teaspoon of real salt to my gallon water jugs and go about my day drinking as much as I can. I started eating as many vegetables and meats and unprocessed foods as possible. This is one of my continuing struggles while living with a family that has not adopted my concern for health. At supper we have moved away from red meat due to my wife’s recent diagnosis with Alpha Gal, so that has helped in facilitating a move toward healthier choices BUT the processed foods and seed oils still show up in spite of the giant jugs of olive oil I make sure to have around.
And for three years now, I have worked on shortening my supply chain. Slowly I went together on my plan to expand my gentleman farming operation. I increased the number of chickens for egg production, the number of raised beds for gardening for vegetable growth, started growing pear, apple, and olive trees, built greenhouses to keep food production continuing through the fall and winter, started growing strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, started composting to create my soil, added rabbits for manure and meat production, started collecting rainwater for sustainability . . . I slowly expanded my operation. I didn’t take out a loan. I didn’t put myself into debt. I made a trip a week every Saturday morning to Lowes, Southern States, and Tractor Supply. I bought some things here and some things there. Threw some ideas against the wall that did not work, like growing cinnamon, and moved on with the knowledge I gained.
For three years, I have worked on avoiding the news and, mainly, getting worried about things that don’t move my needle, things that don’t change my life, things that don’t make my family better. But, I still have to deal with the problems old me created. And I am okay with that because new me is much more frustrated with old me than any of you could ever be. Old me kept this version of me from happening sooner. But, old me also allowed this me to happen. Amor fati.
So, if there is one piece of advice I can leave today before I post this entry today . . . It is simply to do what makes you happy. There are going to be folks that don’t know your journey ready to judge everything you do. And they will be judging you no matter what. You just got let them do them. The more secure you are in who you are, the more aligned your life is in body and spirit, the more healthy you are about your choices . . . . The more peace you will have with the judgment of others. True peace is not just saying you don’t care about what other people say because we hear enough people lie about that . . . true peace is being concerned with your own judgment of your life. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matthew 7:1 NIV). Are you ate peace?
