What is important and what is not

 

I think of myself as a peaceful man.  I went out of my way to avoid conflict until I realized that there are people out there who not only look for it, but they also thrive on it.  I learned this lesson in high school and it stuck with me all my life.

My estranged father gave me some advice that I will try to pass onto you.  I will not sugar coat what he said or how he said it because this is who he was.  What he said goes something like this:

            “Son, sometimes you gonna have to come out of your mouth with a bunch of muthaf@ckas to let some people know how you feel about some shite!”

He was right.

There are some people that only understand your anger and expression in some colorful language.  They don’t understand kindness, integrity, politeness, or gratitude. They look at these attributes as a weakness.

As a writer, I’ve enjoyed expressing myself in what I hope to be insightful.  You might not always agree with my perspective and that’s okay.  You don’t have to.

I’m all about peace and tranquility.  It seems like we don’t have enough of this.

As our world seems to continually be turned upside down by dictators as well as people that are in our governmental administrations who desire to do absolutely nothing to help the American people, we are reminded that we have better angels…each and every one of us.

We’re living in a time when we truly need to call on those better angels but sadly, many of us do not and will not.  We’d rather be ignorant in our areas of comfort rather than be well-informed outside of our respective bubbles.

I stand for peace…and love…and kindness.  But don’t get it twisted, if you come for me, my family, my husband, or anybody that I love…then you have a whole different side of my personality to deal with.

It is important to show love, compassion, kindness mixed with integrity and honesty.  Loving one another is easier than you think.  Maybe hatred is easy.  Maybe it isn’t.  I would like to believe that hatred although it is easy cannot and should not be the choice that we select simply because it is easy.

"I stand for peace…and love…and kindness.  But don’t get it twisted, if you come for me, my family, my husband, or anybody that I love…then you have a whole different side of my personality to deal with." ~ J.L. Whitehead

Loving is hard.  Sometimes it’s hard to love someone you know much less someone that you don’t.  At the end of the day, it doesn’t, nor should it matter.

We’re living in an era of war, violence, corruption, dishonesty, fear mongering, deceptions, hatred and lies.  We’re living in an era where wrong is right and right is wrong.

 Here’s the thing…remain true to your convictions. 

We have more than enough goodness in the world, but it bears mentioning that this is the voice that is mostly quiet.  We are not less than.  We are humble.

Right now, the louder voices are the ones that hate because they feel the need to spread their hatred.  They do it with impunity, especially when they see their constituents doing it as well.

We must stand up for all that is good and right with humanity.

Like I said earlier…I stand for love, peace, kindness, and compassion.

~J.L. Whitehead