Why Don't You Just Meet Me in the Middle?

The above photo is from my most comfortable, in the middle place so far this year. Early morning on an empty, private beach in Cabo.

But, tranquility is not a feeling that many of us have been able to find on a regular basis. The world seems to becoming divided against itself. So, here is what I mean.

Humans are rough on eachother these days! What TV and other media show us is how divided we are and that the truth is so very different from one person to the next. People are calling each other crazy and making claims about how wrong everyone is. How can one person exclaim the sky is yellow and another proclaim the sky is purple . . . and both be right? But, each are vehemently staunch in their belief and cannot be swayed from it.

What they don't realize is that they are BOTH wrong and BOTH are living on the fringes of the truth. All of the media does this to us. TV, social, radio, print, whatever. They are all spewing propaganda and trying to swing our way of life to one end of the spectrum. Tiring and frustrating for sure! All for the price of greed.

Thank God I have found the world to not be so crazy as the media says we are. I have been doing my own research for the past 6 months. After spending 75% of 2022 on the road traveling, I have talked to thousands of people from every U.S. state and Mexico. The one thing that gives me hope is that the real world is NOT crazy, at least not like they tell us we are.

The REAL WORLD, the one where we go to the store, fill up with gas, spend time at work, get a bite to eat, catch an Uber, stop to see a friend, or attend a local event, is somewhere in the middle.

What gives me hope is talking to friendly folks everywhere and coming to realize that each individual only wants a fair, honest, healthy life . . . for themselves and for their loved ones. Survival, happiness, and enjoyment of life's pivotal moments are just a few of the things that bring us together. The things that keep us apart are few. LOUD, but few.

The dilemma that exists is that the middle is where we most reside, but the middle is not very exciting or attention grabbing. So, we are forced to pay attention to the extremes, the fringes. Then we follow our own swerve and get caught up in one of the extremes, disliking anything that does not fit into it's construct . . . hating the other side.

Therein lies the issue. The middle doesn't evoke feeling, and therefore isn't where marketing dollars are spent. Because if there is no feeling, there is no attention surrounding it. There is no money to be made.

The middle is boring, and not profitable.

The middle doesn't create drastic action.

The middle won't keep you from making a tough decision that will harshly change you life.

But, the middle is where we need to be as a collective consciousness. The middle is where we thrive and all bring eachother up together. I'm not talking about socialism, I'm talking about the common good.

The Crossroads community in donwtown Kansas City is a good and heartfelt example of this. All the businesses there thrive because they support one another. At the risk of revenue, I have seen these businesses send patrons elsewhere in order reserve events or cater to large parites. I hear employees in this area all talk lovingly of their surrounding business neighbors. And, I personally see them spending money at neighboring businesses out of a show of support for one another. Bringing others up, together.

This is the common good. Innately, we want to believe each other and agree with one another.

We mustn't pay so close attention to the media that we let their information become our opinions. Let some critical thinking take place and form your own beliefs, keeping the source in mind. I'm not going to let neither Tucker Carlson nor Whoopi Godlberg become my barometer for truth. Digesting their information is important, but not altogether the singular solution. Self-educate, PLEASE.

Disseminating information and then talking with others openly and objectively is a good best practice in finding the middle. But the willingness to listen and participate in genuine discourse is the only solution. Not throwing hate messages toward your adversaries from the periphery. This just thwarts understanding and pushes us further from the middle, thus emboldening the social problems that are rising in our country.

I am always sad to see the seperation of our society, especially on a personal level such as through social media. The most recent example is when I saw someone post the words, "Agree with me or unfriend me!" This is lame and closed-minded for sure. This is not meeting in the middle or at all understanding. This is hate driven, and only love begets love. I am confident that you intelligent beings out there understand how the opposite of this maxim works.

But, I was hopefully enlilghtened over the past 6 months to see how much more that REAL people want to support each other. REAL people want us to meet in the middle.

This is how we best thrive in our country. The middle is the basis of how we solve the majority of our problems.

We are all losing our minds just a little . . . so why can't we just meet in the middle?