Escape is not an Option

Sometimes we just want the world to go away. Well, at least I do. That's my strategy when it all becomes too much for me. I pretend the rest of you no longer exist. Poof!

Lucky for you I don't have magic powers to make you all disappear. On a bad day....................

Well, you get my drift. Nothing personal. Really. It's just an escape mentality. Like in the video game Final Fantasy. One of the options when you face an opponent is FLEE. Hmmm. Where is that FLEE option in life? Give me an ESCAPE key.......somebody......anybody?

Not that you and I are at war with each other. But, the world can make us weary. I can't do anything about Abu Ghraib. I can't take back the pictures. I can't stop the stupid congress from posturing on the tube every day, giving our enemies fodder for the fight.

So many idiots. So little power personally to reign them in.

That's a discussion I had with the Girl recently. Did we talk about it here? (Would you remember if we had?) It's one of the hardest lessons to learn in life.

YOU CAN'T CHANGE PEOPLE. YOU ONLY HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE YOURSELF.

You can love people. You can be a role model. You can support them. These things may well contribute to them deciding to change on their own. But, only they can make the decision to change. You and I don't get to vote. It can drive you nuts because we can always see everyone else's faults and the solution so much clearer than we can see our own.

But I digress. Didn't mean to take that path at all. Did you enjoy the diversion?

Escape. That's where we started.

I'm avoiding the images of Nick Berg, being brutally beheaded by the animal Zarqawi. Mancow jumped into my hiding place this morning to tell me that it took five cuts for them to decapitate him. I didn't want to know that.

The truth is I can't hide, as much as I might like to think I can avoid the ugly realities. We have an enemy who longs to kill us, who worships death, an enemy I can't begin to relate to. This will be a long fight. Failure is not an option. Can you imagine the world we would leave to our children if we lose the war with the radical Islamists? Its. Unthinkable.

In this I do have some power at least. I can support President Bush, whom I believe has the vision to defeat this evil. I can support his re-election, because I believe John Kerry has no vision, other than himself on the throne of power. He's been delighting in the fantasy for years apparently, telling those he met in Vietnam that he was the future JFK..........well he's become JF'nK as we now know.

He is not the man for the job. Again....Unthinkable.

So I crawl back out of my shell. Time to move on. Get to the business at hand.

Someone else decided to escape to a place where they know what we're fighting for. Rummy went to Baghdad. What a relief it must be after sitting in front of congress. I can imagine him muttering under his breath, "Thank God our men and women here know the truth, understand what this war is about, know that failure is not an option. We'll get through this crisis and be better for it because the huge majority of our forces "get it." I'm so glad I came and looked them in the eye."

He's not running away from the stupid polls and even more stupid politicians. He's running to a place where people know the truth about this war, where they live and breath it.

Because he knows escape is not an option.

Comments

[Teresa]

Sometimes the BEST thing to do is to just go away from the news for a while. All of it, everywhere. As you say, there is nothing we can actually DO about any of these things. (although the blogging outlet to the world is a bit of a help *G*)

So, when I am overwhelmed, I take Andrew Weil's advice and take a "news fast". I try to make it a weekend. No television unless I'm watching an OLD movie, no radio, no newspapers or magazines, no internet. I read, go for walks, go shopping. *G* It's amazing what one weekend off from the news will do for your mind.

I did this the weekend after 9/11 - everyone thought I was nuts, but it turned out I was the only person I knew who wasn't having symptoms of PTSD. I couldn't change what happened, I couldn't physically help, so I just turned it all off. Hope you're feeling back into things soon!