Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. I had a really busy week last week, and I was not able to do a podcast last week at all. So uh sometimes it's like that. I get busy and I'm not able to do it, but I'm back in the saddle and uh raring to go for today. So I wanted to start out by talking about some of the things that are going on today. Not in depth, but just to try to get some context about how life is going right now for a lot of people. And we all have different challenges, we all have different uh things that we are dealing with. Uh certainly anyone living outside the country, particularly in a third world country, perhaps, or other country where there are challenges going on. For instance, Afghanistan. That's really big in the news this week. And I really feel bad for the people over there. They're having challenges that most of us here in the states will never be able to experience, thankfully. And I'm extremely sad for the challenges that they are having over there. It's it can't be good, it's not good. And we can debate about whether we should be in Afghanistan as a as a country, a military, but that debate is about 25 years too late. We are there, or at least we were. I I suppose there are contingencies of Americans over there now, but it looks like the Taliban is gonna take over the country. And so the last 20 years, all the effort, the blood, the sweat, and the tears, and the sacrifices, are they gonna be for naught? I don't know, but it's a very sad state of affairs. We'll just have to wait and see what happens over there. We don't have any idea what's going to happen right now, but it's just not a good set of circumstances. And I'm concerned for our military over there and concerned for the safety of the people who are living there. And I mean, it's it's just not a good thing at all. Uh closer to home, we have gas prices that seem to be going up and up and up, and food and other items that we need for daily living seem to be going up as well, so that's never a good thing. We seem to have some wildfires that are burning in some cases, maybe out of control. Maybe we've gotten so accustomed to having wildfires every summer that we've almost become numb to it. Certainly those who are on the front lines fighting it are not numb to it. It's a very real for them. And I pray that they can have success in getting these fires uh under control. We have what I would call a border crisis still going on at our southern border. It is not in the news or doesn't seem to be in the news as prominently as it once was earlier this year. But make no mistake about it, there certainly is a crisis at the border, and what we should do about it is up for debate as well. But there certainly is a crisis there. We don't seem to be escaping the COVID situation. It seems to be prominent still, and we are nearing the end of summer, so it just we kind of all wait with bated breath to see what's going to happen going into the fall and winter seasons. And certainly uh we hope and pray that uh that can be taken care of and that people can get on with their lives in more of a normal fashion. And finally, I would just say that a lot of times the stresses of everyday living can pile up on us, and it can be challenging, it can be frustrating, and I I hope that we can uh somehow find a way to relieve that stress, find a way to forget about life on a regular basis, whether that's every day or weekly or or doing something that will help us as individuals to cope with the stress of life. I mean, it's it's stressful for everyone, I think. And I think that that's that's not the way we we want to live, certainly not the way I want to live. I want to be able to minimize the stress in my life, and that's what it's all about to me. And I think that if we want to maintain optimum health mentally, physically, spiritually, we need to be able to deal with stress and we need to be able to deal with it in a way that is positive, that will help us to grow eventually. We hear a lot about balance in life and that it's important to have a balance in our lives. And I recently heard someone describe that aspect of living as almost unachievable. And this person related it to a circus individual who, and we've all seen this where they have a stick and they have a plate spinning on one stick, and then two, and then three, and then four, and then five, and six, and however many sticks with plates on them, and those plates are spinning. What happens for the person spinning the plates? They have to go back to the beginning because the plate will start to to lose its spin and die down, and then they got to go back and spin those plates again, they keep doing that over and over. Yes, they're balancing all the plates on those sticks, but is that if you were if if you looked at that and said, okay, this is analogous to life, and this is how I need to balance my life, I'd say, no way, that's too hectic. I don't want to have to keep going back and forth from one stick to the other, balancing the plate before it falls and breaks. That to me is just not appealing. I simply have no desire to maintain balance in my life if figuratively I'm running back and forth from one stick to the other, making sure I'm spinning that plate in order to keep it going. That's just not how I want to do my life. And you look at a lot of people who seem to have a lot of stress in their life and try to maintain or achieve some sort of balance, that's what they're doing. They're running like a chicken with their head cut off oftentimes from one thing to the next just to maintain balance. And if maintaining balance in my life means that I'm doing that, then I don't want any part of that. All of this to say that I think the jury is still out on balance in our lives. In any event, ladies and gentlemen, I have come to the point that I wanted to discuss for today's episode, which is mental health. Now, if you had to guess what event happened last year that gave me pause regarding the mental health status of many Americans, what would you say? Now, you might say the advent of COVID-19 produced some serious strain on the mental health status of a lot of people, and you wouldn't be wrong. However, the event that I'm referring to is the presidential campaign and subsequent election. Now, there is no doubt that social media has exasperated or even amplified the instances of what I would consider to be instability in our society. Think about experiences that you've had or had regarding the exchanges you may have had with people on your social media platform, and perhaps worse yet, with people that you don't even know on social media. And if you are involved on any social media platform, you know what I'm talking about. You could have had exchanges or conversations with people that you know over politics, and in this case, the election that we had last year for president, and you may have had some heated exchanges. I hope that they were civil, but then all of a sudden, somebody comes in and starts chiming on the conversation, and you're thinking to yourself, I don't even know this person, and they're talking to me like they know me, that they're saying all these things about my character and about who I am and making judgments about the kind of person that I am, and they don't even know me. If that doesn't trouble you to some extent, then maybe your pulse just isn't going strong enough right now. I don't know. But go with me for a moment to the last presidential campaign and think about instances of people being outraged because they could not even tolerate a sign with a particular candidate's name on it. So, in other words, if you were for one candidate and you saw their sign, ah, no big deal. It's great. But if you saw the other candidate sign, you'd go ballistic. I saw it. I'm sure many of you witnessed it as well, whether through social media or actually seeing it play out in real life. Frankly, I'm concerned about people who simply lost it because they couldn't tolerate that another human being was voting for someone that they felt was a wretched human being or that they felt was incompetent or what have you. It's scary, man. I like you, I viewed a lot of scenarios that seem to engender complete distress upon the mental psyche of some individuals, particularly going back to the 2016 presidential election. People kneeling in public and screaming their heads off because the candidate that they wanted to win didn't win. Wow. It's to me I can't even explain what I'm thinking right now because it's I can't believe it. Why would you be so distressed for one person that didn't win an election that you thought that person should have won? And now you're gonna just lose it? Our constitution's a little stronger than that, people. Come on, man. To say that this kind of behavior is really troubling would be the understatement of the decade anyway. Why do we have these sorts of episodes during a presidential campaign just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. And then this gets me to thinking that maybe we're in denial as a society when it comes to discussing the challenges of mental health issues. Undoubtedly, mental health issues in our society are at uh almost epidemic proportions, perhaps even pandemic proportions, and I'm not exaggerating. Think about it. I would venture to say that the reason, or at least a big reason for homelessness or random mass shootings, crime of almost any proportion, or a host of other societal ills, is because of the instability known as mental health. When people are not well mentally, they do things that they wouldn't otherwise do. Now, that can be a number of things, and I've only mentioned just a few. Think about it. Think about the things that lead people to homelessness. I don't think people wake up one day and say, you know what? I'm gonna live out on the street and be homeless and beg for my everything that I need. I don't think people do that. If they do such things, then they definitely have some mental health issues, and we can't be so cautious that we're afraid to call it out. We should call it out and we should get help for those people who need it because no one lives their life hoping that they can be homeless and have to beg for everything that they need. No one hopes that. You have mental health issues if you're in a situation where you are living on the street. I get it. There are other reasons for why people do what they do. And it may not be mental health, at least not initially. But eventually, if somebody is abusing drugs or alcohol or doing those things that are going to take them away from being a responsible citizen, then it's going to eventually get into mental health. Whether it does or it manifests itself at the beginning, it doesn't matter. Eventually, it'll get to a mental health situation. And of course, the really challenging part about all of this, ladies and gentlemen, is that you cannot help someone who doesn't want help. And it makes it even harder to be able to get that person the help that they need when they refuse to help to begin with, which really points to the sort of heinous nature of mental health. And by that I mean it's like an alcoholic. An alcoholic or any other person who has an addiction, until they recognize that they have this addiction, recognize that it's taken complete control of their lives, they won't get the help that they need. And mental health is the same way. If someone doesn't recognize that they need help, then they're certainly not going to seek it out. And that's the really, I think, destructive nature of mental health and how, and perhaps maybe why as a society we just don't do a very good job of helping people who struggle with mental health issues. I could say this for sure that as a society, we can't afford to neglect mental health issues. We need to be sensitive, yes, but we cannot afford to address mental health issues with kid gloves. It doesn't do anybody any good, especially the person who needs to help the most. In the end, ladies and gentlemen, I suppose there are a multitude of different reasons that lead people to mental illness, some of which may be able to be helped, and others perhaps not. But this much I can say, we need to be constantly aware of what we're feeding our mind. We pay attention to the things that we put into our body in the form of food, and if we eat improperly, then we typically will suffer the health consequences of eating improperly. But if we eat a more healthy diet, if we put things into our body that are going to benefit us, then that's a good thing. The same is true with the mind. We have to fill our minds with good things, with uplifting positive thoughts, with those things that will help us develop a greater intellect and be able to cause our minds to continue to grow because the way I see it, the brain, the mind is like a muscle. If we don't exercise a particular muscle, then we get flabby. We lose muscle. Well, the same is true, it seems to me, with our brain, with our mind. We have to continue to feed our mind and our brains with those things that are stimulating that will help us in our abilities to think and to reason and do the best we can. I remember my grandmother Reed, she lived to be in into her 90s, and she would always do a crossword puzzle, a word search, something that that would keep her mind active. And to me, that's what it's all about. We have to keep our minds active so that we don't slip into a situation where we eventually might have mental health issues. And I get it, I understand. I mean, we can't control the outcome of some things, but in many things we can have a profound impact on the outcome of our lives. And with that, I want to read a quote from a gentleman by the name of Napoleon Hill. Most of us recognize that name of the author of Think and Grow Rich. Well, he said this quote Without doubt, the most common weakness of all human beings is the habit of leaving their minds open to the negative influence of other people. This weakness is all the more damaging because most people do not recognize that they are cursed by it, and many who acknowledge it neglect or refuse to correct the anomaly until it becomes an uncontrollable part of their daily habits. End of quote. And with that, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.