American Friends... What are We Fighting For?

Note: America is on my mind today while I eat breakfast beyond the border, but we could probably [find and replace] most countries on our amazing planet.? In an ideal world, I could and world address The World.? Unfortunately, November is right around the corner.

When I was born into my American family, on rich and fertile American soil in the Heart of the Heartland, I was promised freedom and a society that treasured life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.? While I am a happy human and full of hope, I don’t feel safe or cozy in America today, and I’m not confident life, liberty and happiness FOR ALL is truly a priority.

So what does it take for everyone to be safe, free and ready to activate a new greater good for ourselves and everyone else? ? Every person, place and thing is interconnected and circular, so we could start anywhere.? The most important thing is to start somewhere.

If I could advise our candidates today, I’d offer the following thoughts in (6) areas: Safety, Relationships, Participation, Education, Tolerance and Love.

First: Safety

Every American should wake up in a physically and psychologically safe space.? What does it take to provide every American shelter, protection from harsh environments, healthy food for our miraculous, self-healing bodies and clothes to keep us comfortable? ? What does it take to soothe the hurt people who hurt people, to break vicious cycles and integrate the forgiven into the good life again?? How do we hold the sick and hurt in a way we’d like to be held in days of pain and problems? When do we share our abundant capacity for loving kindness, even when resources are low?? ?

We can shape a thriving system that leaves no one behind by considering frameworks of the past & present [Democracy/Socialism/Communism/Marxism/Capitalism/...] and adopting tactics and elements without copying and pasting everything.? There are things to learn from everything that has ever been tried - and some communities are absolutely having a better time than others.? What’s different?? How can we all expand the good practices, for all, and address sources of separation, dis-ease and pain?? How do we make it safe to learn, work, play and pray, as you wish, without fear, worry, anxiety and hunger?? I long for an America where no one can sleep unless everyone has a bed - where tent cities and families living in cars keep everyone else up at night until we ALL sleep as people in the richest country on Earth should: Warm, cozy and ready to dream.

Please use my taxes - which I am grateful to be able to pay - to fund affordable housing, subsidized housing, and first class homeless shelters until everyone is able to take care of themselves & their loved ones at the minimum standard of American life for all.? Please use my taxes to put away the guns that get pointed at people.? You have my full support to raise taxes on processed foods, confined animals & farmed fish, excess sugar, tobacco and alcohol, and to use those funds to plant more vegetables, fruits & grains, and subsidize medicine, mental care and rehabilitation anywhere. Please provide universal healthcare for all children.? Also ensure safety, health and life support for all elders beyond their working years.

Second: Relationships

Every human thrives when connected to others, giving and receiving attention, energy and affection.? What does it take for us to help all people bring care and curiosity to relationships with family, neighbors and colleagues? Where we share big ideas and strong opinions with space to shape and push any concept to common ground and greatest good?? If our systems supported the right to a basic quality of life for all, some who flourished and thrived the most from giving and receiving would be appreciated, not resented.? We love the people who take care of us, and return the loving energy through appreciation, adoration and gratitude.? The cycle breaks when we watch people who have more than they need take care of themselves knowing peers are struggling to breathe during the very same day.? Let’s pause to look at the pipes running between us and everyone else… are they open, clean, and flowing effortlessly or clogged, blocked and full of debris?? Blocked arteries and blocked love are equally damaging.? Let’s clean our pipes anywhere we’re experiencing hate, judgment, fear and separation with another.? Starting with self, extending to home and friends, reaching for strangers and on to All.

Please use my taxes - which I am grateful to be able to pay - to erase lines, laws and policies that restrict equality, suppress votes, enable violence, inhibit reproductive freedom, or impose a “right” way to express love.? Bring bold font to all laws and policies that protect EVERY American’s (actually every Human’s) right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.? Publish a streaming evaluation/score calculating each representative’s daily and cumulative impact improving the basic quality of life for all.? Recognize and reward the policy makers and judges who have the best results making life better for the most people. Use the internet, media and education to showcase great debate & effective collaboration:? where it’s normal to consider diverse voices and ideas, and we use all input to elevate the status quo for all.? If we’re going to live on a ladder where we celebrate achievement, idolize celebrities and pursue the overflowing abundance at the highest step, let’s do it with great care for the bottom rung.? It’s most grounded and closer to reality for the greatest % of humans.? The strength of the love there allows the few at the top to keep building capabilities and abundance for all when we get the system right.

Third: Participation

All humans are holding gifts and talents for their own bliss and to be shared with others. Many of those talents, combined with time, can be traded for money.? With this exchange of services, creations and goods between each other, we take care of our selves first, then our families and friends, and then others more broadly.? It feels good to participate in community, but it’s hard to participate if every member’s basic needs are not met. Let’s shape policies, taxation and “jobs” to activate everyone who can contribute, and let’s happily hold people who are restricted from any disease, affliction or circumstance in a way that they want to jump in again the minute they are well.? Giving and receiving are so beautiful in balance.? It’s a pleasure to make enough to pay taxes and contribute to schools, roads, arts and fields for all.? If you don’t have enough, I’ll share for today and help you access your own abundance long-term.? I trust that someone who has received help will generally pay it forward when it’s possible.

Please use my taxes, which I am grateful to be able to pay, to help everyone find meaningful work they are happy to do of their own free will.? Let’s help every person achieve and enjoy a minimum, safe and healthy life with work, play and community in balance.? Teach us to see the best in each other, to understand our differences and question the truth behind them… over time, enjoy the differences that are our unique gifts and let go of the differences rooted in hate, judgment and supremacy.

Fourth: Education

Oh the power of a curious mind & open heart!? Every viable human breathes into a personal river of nourishing, cleansing blood and an electrical network of stimulation and power. ? All day, every day, we navigate a world of words, sights, sounds, tastes, textures and infinite possibilities.? Through education, we learn from the past and gather information to understand today & anticipate tomorrow.? Basic education gives every child access to more education forever:? reading comprehension, math and logic fundamentals, oral & written communication, independent thinking AND teamwork, safety basics like how to swim and first aid.? As seeds are planted, personal passions grow into specializion… for personal growth and the abundant fruits of service to others.? Value is easily exchanged as I trade my gains for things I desire from your gifts and creations.? Let’s consider an America where we want every person to understand the words, consider many points of view and share responsibility for innovation, safety and a better tomorrow for all. If we insist on maintaining expensive, elite educations for a few, balance that with broad and affordable access to education for anyone who is willing to be a teacher, a nurse, a home healthcare worker, a cook, a driver, a daycare worker, a maid, a factory worker, an artist or poet.? ?

What are the policies that create education for everyone without crushing debt - a toxic source of fear, anxiety and worry for years of too many American lives?? How do we support the single parents or working families who don’t have abundant time or energy to read to and play with their children?? All kids are American kids, and the America waiting for them as adults is best served when they are all adequately enabled with great skills and motivation to share their passions, ideas and abundance in life.

Please use my taxes - which I am grateful to be able to pay - to overhaul education with an urgent goal to provide a early childhood, primary and secondary education for every single kid in America.? Use my taxes to train teachers and pay them for their incredibly important service to our country and the future leaders in humanity.? Splurge with my taxes to activate programs for particularly creative kids, particularly curious kids, particularly traumatized kids, and more.? Teach all ages who can’t read for free - with zero shame.? Encourage Americans to learn many languages - for free- to be effective global citizens. Place a bet that knowledge and skill building around inclusion, debate, problem solving and equality will lead to more participation, stronger communities, and future leaders who seek to expand sustainable solutions to all.

Fifth:? Tolerance

Humans are designed for independence and interdependence.? As one organism, we can do, think and feel many things all by ourselves.? Life, though, is lived in relationship with everything and everyone beyond our skin border.? Our fine-tuned bodies alert us to safe and unsafe situations, and we all inherently know when we are attracted to goodness and positivity and when it’s time to resist threats or run.? Sadly, though, a lot of the perceived threats are not threats at all but stories held in our bodies and minds from our ancestors, communities, religions and training.? Stories about good and bad “people” are told and retold to protect our tribes, but there is a widening gap between what any “people” represent and the truth in each individual soul-body combination.? What are the policies that help everyone see everyone, replacing hate and judgement with curiosity and concern?? Where migrants and refugees are met with kindness and understanding as their lives are uprooted, safety is sought and dreams are suspended?? We don’t have to like everyone or every idea, but we can hold space for differences to just be ok.? It would be very boring if we were all the same!? But it would be extremely positive if we were all tolerant of personal expression and ready act when behaviors hurt anyone else.

Please use my taxes - which I am grateful to be able to pay - to embed tolerance and respect as a core value for every American.? Protect free speech with a filter that traps hate, bigotry, racism, greed, supremacy, manipulation, predators and violence and puts a huge tax on pushing these energies into the world.? Reward outlets and people who use the words from their lives to resolve differences, quench fires, soothe pains and encourage participation. ? Lead us all to put our energy into the real problems - protecting resources for the future, innovating for sustainable energy, quality food supplies, housing everyone, and reducing the fear and friction between countries, religions, genders, classes, races and generations until it’s gone.? ? ?

Saving the best for last:? Love

The greatest gift in human design is our capacity for love.? Love is the glue that holds relationships, families, communities, ecosystems and the world together.? Let’s use our words and time together to extend and expand love.? To bring love to every child, to every friend, to every stranger.? To products and services, to songs and meals.? To sports and teams, to cities and countrysides.? When we talk about borders and battles, prisons and protection, illnesses and dis-ease, problems and pain, let’s tap into our love and gratitude for our lives, for our resources, for our opportunity to connect and share. For these amazing minds and hearts that give us tools to shape, create and improve our world so we thrive and flourish, and everyone else does too.? If I am aware a single other human being is waking their kids up in a car this morning - a car they call home and freeze in together before school and work, how do we connect the abundant citizens to circle that friend and ask what they need to join the party around the corner?? It’s not only up to the politicians to create a better American for all… it’s up to all of us to change the way the game of life is organized today.? What can our love do and where can our love go today?? Let our love of self and gratitude for this life fill us up and flow into a river of love for it all. LIFE IS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD.? FOR EVERYONE.? Let it flow into every crack, every crevice and every space between each and all of us.

Please use my taxes - which I am grateful to be able to pay - to unleash the love in every American’s heart and soul.? Hire the speech writers, coaches, therapists, doulas, nuns, negotiators and gurus who can reconnect us to our loving nature, our grace and our compassion for a stranger.? Remind us daily we don’t really know any person we’ve never met, and our instinct is to help any human leave a burning building or dangerous moment when we can lend a hand.? Show us the price we are paying for the constant stream of tension, judgement, fear and anxiety in the status quo, and let us completely enjoy the feeling that comes with Thanksgiving Dinner, 4th of July fireworks and graduation days in any community.? It’s time to attack the loneliness epidemic, extinguish suicide and depression, eradicate hate and address discrimination.? If it can’t happen in America, where could it happen?? We really do have everything we need -? as a nation of free-willed immigrants with freedom and energy to chase big dreams - to have this whenever we choose it for ourselves and each other.

#lovewins

#bettertogether

#americaforall