The everyday conundrum

The world has become so hard to fathom. Maybe not having 24 hour news coming at us from all social media channels means we were just blind to the ways of the world. But I suspect that that is not the case. It’s really a crueler world. The big drama of hurricanes and floods and droughts. The river of people removed from their homes by hatred and political machinations and seeking refuge wherever they can. The situation in which a person thinks it’s ok to take a gun and spray it into a crowd. The governments who use political posturing to keep its citizens and neighbours quaking in their boots. It all seems dark and inhumane and without hope. 

And yet we must find a way to keep going. To get through our days and teach ourselves and our children to make wise choices, gentle overtures and lead with kindness. It seems an almost impossible situation. I feel like we are working every day in some way to keep hope alive no matter how hopeless it all looks. It’s so hard to see the outcomes of small individual steps or even collectively as a family. It’s nearly impossible to see how the use of reusable bags or removing cling film will save the oceans. Or how disallowing nerf guns or violent video games will make our child less likely to choose violence or be safe from the violence of others. Every choice is fraught with options and judgements from others who choose a different path. And yet life is a road on which we daily have to choose which fork to take. And so we do, blinded by our own whims fancies and contexts.

I find that my days and nights are filled with worry about the state of the world or overwhelmed by the impossibility of it all. I’ve taken to a short time of daily meditation to try and clear my mind from the clouding of the state of the world. To try and focus on the fact that in everyday life we have choices that are smaller than a drop in the ocean but worthy nonetheless. After all what do have to give our child beside the overarching hope that he will be choose to be kind and in return be the recipient of kindness in an ever more cut throat world. Parenting includes the drama of everyday and the sharing of world problems for background.