So-called “special programs” to save people from themselves

In society today there’s a tough balance between a hand-out and hand-up. I see a lot of people struggling with various issues, such as addiction, mental illness and homelessness.  When you look at their daily lives, once they have been in these situations for a while, you begin to understand why it is difficult for them to get out.

Let’s start with addiction, once someone becomes addicted their life becomes focused on one thing and that is finding the next bottle or drug of choice. I've seen many people spend all day trying to find a way just to get enough money to buy whatever their drug of choice is or a bottle. Some of them have to put in some serious effort and it makes you wonder if they had to work that hard just to get the money to buy the drug of choice, how hard would they work if they had a job with hope and purpose and were not addicted.

Then you look at those who are struggling with mental illness and the labels society puts on them and the medications they have to take just to make it through one day. Some even get into trouble and have to go through what they call “Mental Health Court” and are required to attend a number of meetings each week. Some of the restrictions from the outside seem very silly and I know they have to watch what they say to the judge or counselor.  I know that seems funny, they’re struggling with mental illness and they have to be careful with what they say. Sometimes I think the system is stacked against them.

By looking at the homeless, which could encompass addiction and mental illness, or for some it could be they are just going against society you see a different picture. Because of the generosity of those around them they are able to survive. You see once you’re on the street for a while you develop a system, you know where to get breakfast, you know where to get lunch and dinner and when winter comes there is almost always a warm place to sleep.

The problem comes when you are socializing with those who are suffering just as much if not worse than you are this lifestyle becomes comfortable and normal. In some cases they begin to prefer it.  I look around and see how much money we as individuals give to the people standing on street corner with their hand out, with their crudely written signs and the amount of money the government spends on so-called “special programs” to save people from themselves.  But most of these “special programs” don’t include helping them develop the skills to get back into society and learn to live what we call a normal life. 

They just make us feel better because we are not letting them starve to death.

There are a few private programs such as Union Gospel Mission, which provides an 18 month program that if you completed it you come out with better social skills and having learned how to cope in society and how to hold a job.

Most of our government programs just send out a check and they think they are doing the right thing but I suggest that there is something better and that is to provide people with hope and purpose. By sending them a check you take away their hope and their purpose and they only live to get by until the next check arrives.

Then there is the prison system, which do you realize cost the taxpayer $35,000 on average to house a prisoner for one year. In New York State it is $65,000 per year per person. (By the way 76% end up back in jail) What if we took all of this money that we are spending on “special programs” and prison cells and use it to create a similar model such as the Union Gospel Mission and many other private organizations have created around the country.  Maybe it would be money better spent.

Dream Job… You don’t always have to follow your passion, but you do have to bring it with you!

What is your dream job and is it the same dream job as it was when you were young and even what you studied in college?  Many of us growing up have a dream job in mind and then we grow up and find out being a cowboy or a sports hero is not what it looks like in the movies.

When I asked what people wanted to be when they grew up the list was predictable.. Fireman, cowboy, astronaut or football player.  For me, I wanted to be a photographer, specifically a wildlife/nature photographer.  That didn't last long, since I wanted to eat and pay my bills.  I ended up going back to college for electronics and now I don’t do that either.

We put such an emphasis on education and careers and then we push our kids to do the same thing. Get an education and a career.  Only to later find out it’s not what we wanted to do after all or maybe it wasn't something we could make a living doing.

In most countries they only hope to be able to feed and clothe their family and don’t dare dream of what job they would like to have.

Do we have the right to dream and choose our life path? You have heard the saying  “Do what you love and the money will follow”.

Well yes we do… and that is exactly what this country was founded on.  Can you imagine if Columbus had not dreamt up the notion that the world was not flat and dreamt of faraway lands? What if the Pilgrims had not jumped on those three cramped boats for the dream of settling new lands?  Can you image if those first settlers had decided the east coast was good enough and not traveled west.  What about those that hit the Rockies and said ehh that’s far enough.  Then others said, hmmm what’s on the other side, let’s climb 14,000 feet over those peaks and see what is there.

Can you imagine what would have happened if we decided the moon was too far and President Kennedy had not said “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. Where would we be as a nation today if we had not dreamt big?

Dream job.. It is important is to dream and dream big.  Chase your dreams, chase your passion, and don’t sacrifice your heart for someone else’s plan for you.   Encourage your kids to chase their dreams and passions, don’t put limits on them, let them soar.  They will find their own way.  Similar to what an Eagle does when their young are ready.  They force them out of the nest so they learn to fly and to find their own way and soar.    You are never too old to leave the comfort of the nest, chase your dreams or change careers.

Dream Job… You don’t always have to follow your passion, but you do have to bring it with you!

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The real problem is lack of accountability and purpose

What is the real problem we are facing in America and what are the effects of this problem?

The real problem is lack of accountability and purpose.  When people do not feel they have a purpose they become lost and if they are not held accountable they go astray.   When people go astray and don’t have purpose they easily become addicted and afflicted.

When did we stop caring about others and holding them accountable for their actions and the harm they do to others?  Maybe we didn’t stop caring, maybe we just stop doing anything about it.  Did that happened when the government said it was their job and we said OK I will take a nap.  Well look how well that has worked out.

Look around you, there are too many people in the world who are hurting and hurting others.  Many are too ashamed to admit they are hurting, they just live with their pain and that pain causes a lot of hurts, habits and hang-up’s.  This causes them to do things and act in ways they normally would not.

We are striking out at others… instead of reaching out. 

All we hear from the media, politicians and celebrities are the cries for stricter gun laws, while ignoring the real problem.  The real problem is the pain people are in and it is getting worse.

Look at how we treat people with mental illness, they are ignored or treated as a pariah instead of being understood and loved.  When you look at the recent mass shootings and what they have in common; a history of mental illness and most exhibited clear signals and those around them covered it up or denied.

Do you think for a moment anyone who takes a gun and kills people at random its because they are happy and feeling good?  Of course not, they feel trapped, partly by the stigma we place on people who are addicted and afflicted by something we cannot see or understand.  Look at mental illness, alcohol and drug addiction, when was the last time a friend of yours said I need you to pray for me or hold my hand, because I am suffering from drug addiction or mental illness.  The answer may be never.  People don’t think twice about asking you to pray for them or sit with them when they have cancer or heart problems.

Do you realize how many people die from drugs, alcohol and mental illness and how many families are impacted each year? 

In 2010

·        Alcohol-Induced Deaths 25,692

·        Drug-Induced Deaths 40,393

·        Intentional Self-Harm (Suicide) 38,364

·        Homicide 16,259

The greatest problem may be denial of the real problem.  No one wants to admit they are addicted or afflicted and no one wants to admit someone they love has a problem.  Instead we hide it, deny it, and excuse it, instead of confronting it.

Look at what is happening to our children.  Why do you think drug use among teens has increased dramatically? No accountability, societal pressures, their lives on social media on display and acceptance of drug use? Are they trying to escape or cope?

In 2012, 6.5 percent of 8th graders, 17.0 percent of 10^th graders, and 22.9 percent of 12^th  graders used marijuana in the past month—an increase among 10th and 12^th graders from 14.2 percent, and 18.8 percent in 2007.

Look at what Hollywood does, they accept drug abuse as a part of the business.  They celebrate those who die from it.  The recent Emmys held up Cory Monteith as an icon.  This is a guy who went to rehab and was sent right back to the wolves that catered to his addiction. Obviously he was in trouble, but did anyone doing anything to help him?  No, they just cried when he was gone.  What should have been done; he should have been helped and held accountable. Sit with him, hold his hand and say I am not letting you get away with this crap anymore because I care, and I am here with you.  The average addict goes to rehab 4 times and 70% relapse within 12 months unless they have a support system.

Would you build a house without a plan, would you start a business without a business plan, of course not?  So how do people recover from addiction and affliction without out a plan. They don’t, they die… Some die fast and some die slow.

Why is it getting worse?

The Entertainment industry has a lot of explaining to do.  They expose our children to more violence than most “Call of Duty,” a realistic military simulation that requires players to kill people, Grand Theft Auto V , which made $800 million in the first day.  Yet they say they have no effect.  If that is the case then why did advertisers spend 2012 U.S. $139.5 billion in 2012 to influence our behavior?  

Have any of these simple slogans influenced you? Finger-lickin’ good – Taste the Rainbow –This Bud’s for you ?

I don’t see anyone protesting this abuse of our children, playing these video games the see more than soldiers on active duty in the Middle East see in a four year tour.

It is time we helped those in need by getting them the treatment they need and show them they are loved by holding them accountable.  If you want to get a handle on this problem you must begin to hold each other accountable.  This includes our children.

Children learn what they live

Do you ever wonder why kids do what they do? Behave the way they do?  

When our children are born we spend all of our time teaching them everything they know.  We teach them how to talk, walk, read, and even how to eat.  So why is it such a surprise to see how they behave? Where do you think they learned everything that they do?  Maybe the learned from you or from friends and family.

Kids are like sponges, they absorb and learn everything they see others do and they learn the most from those they trust. So think about it, when you raise your voice or get angry and yell at them, that’s the behavior they start to learn. They think this is acceptable and it is imprinted in their brain and as they grow up that’s what they do.

If you drink or do drugs around your children or they see how you act while you’re under the influence what do you think that tells them. Most people think “oh my child didn't see me drink so they don’t know that I have been drinking”.  Trust me they know everything.

Are your kids on your Facebook? What do you think they’re gleaning from all of your posts or your

funny drunk selfies?  Recently I saw someone post a picture of a marijuana joint and they said how pretty it looked. My first thought was..  do you have children, are their children on their Facebook? I see others posting pictures of their drunken parties and crazy antics while drinking. What do you think this tells your kids, your nieces, nephews and grand-kids?

With social media becoming the primary method in which people communicate don’t you think it is where our children are learning their behavior?  Look at all the racist, angry, hostile post we see from the media and special interest groups.  What impact does this have who our children grow up to be? Of course it has an impact, how else do you think advertisers influence your behavior?  It’s the same impact a college professor has on shaping the minds out our young adults.

Think about it, where do teenagers and young adults come to believe that pot does not hurt them? Maybe it was you, social media or even public figure.

So the next time you’re teenager disrespects you, raises their voice or smokes pot ask yourself.. who taught them this behavior?

 

Is racism because of fear or trying to elevate ourselves

When you look back on the world and see how far we have come…Then you will realize how difficult it must have been for thosewho suffered at the hands of a racist.  Most importantly is to look at who stood for others and stood for what was right and then suffered for their stand.  Then there are those who made a difference.

Jackie Robertson, the Tuskegee Airman or Martin Luther King Jr.  Some fought for the right to play a national past time, some died to make this a better country and some paved the way for those in the future.

A line from the movie 42..  “Maybe tomorrow we should all wear 42 so no one can tell us apart”

The next time any of us think we have it tough we need to look back on these guys and consider what they went through..  How they felt during their darkest hours… What they thought when the whole world seemed to be against them.

Here is how I see it.. We are not born racist, it is taught, sometimes on purpose, sometimes out ignorance and sometimes by race-baiters who have an agenda.

My son is mixed race and I adopted him when he was three days old and he has friends from every race and none of the kids he grew up with saw each other any different.  I would like to think it was because of how I raised him but I know it was only a small part.  Mostly it was the environment he grew up in. One time my son and two of his friends where in the car, one was half Chinese, one was Persian and of course my son who is half black.  I hear from the back seat from the one who was part Chinese say, as he was playing a video driving game, “dang Asian drivers”… I almost crashed the car laughing.  Another time my son and his friends were at the beach and began to play tag and I hear from my son “catch the black man”.  I just shook my head..

Is my son and his friends normal in most parts of the country or even the world I would say not a chance.  The question is why not?   Look at the early immigrants, the Italians hated the Irish, the Puerto Ricans hated the Cubans and they hated the Haitians.  It’s all about trying to elevate our standing in the world by standing on the backs of those we walked on.  Look in any direction and you will find hatred.

Now the children in most of the world are taught to hate and are taught to think how they do and see themselves how they do because of those around them.  By the media, by the news, by the politicians.  You can’t blame one source or one race, you must blame all of us.  Those that are racist and those that perpetuate it and those who allow it.  Which one are you?  The more we make race an issue the bigger the problem becomes. If you treat people the same they feel the same, if you make them feel abused or different they begin to act that way.

Look at a child, when they fall down and skin their knee they look to you to see how they should react.  They mirror the behavior they see.

We all share the responsibility of how these kids feel about themselves and see themselves.

So when we attack each other over this issue and blame each other for the problem we become the problem.   So I ask you to look in the mirror, no matter if you are black, white or brown, and ask yourself…  am I part of the problem or am I part of the solution.

Do Drugs & Alcohol damage the brain.. Duh

There is an ongoing debate about the long term effects of drugs and alcohol on the body and the brain.  Usually those claiming there is no long term effect are those using one or both.  Others claiming that marijuana has no long term effect are those who have a lot to gain from the legalization and sale of marijuana.  Since the legalization in Colorado they have collected $45 million in tax revenue.

There is a lot that they are not telling you.  They said there was no harm and that it would shut down the black market.  Neither one is true.  The black market has grown  http://wapo.st/1km7pr6 and the effects on the brain are undisputable.

Here are the facts about the effects of drugs and alcohol on the brain.

Marijuana

Here is what the National Institute of Drug Abuse for teens – “THC during adolescence are associated with structural and functional changes in the hippocampus.  Studies in rats also show that adolescent exposure to THC is associated with an altered reward system, increasing the likelihood that an animal will self-administer other drugs (e.g., heroin) when given an opportunity (see “Is marijuana a gateway drug?”). Imaging studies in human adolescents show that regular marijuana users display impaired neural connectivity in specific brain regions involved in a broad range of executive functions like memory, learning, and impulse control compared to non-users.”

A large study in New Zealand found that persistent use of Marijuana as an adolescent and stopped as an adult had on average an 8 point lower IQ.

In other studies they found that even short term regular use had a significant effect on the brain and this is demonstrated in the image comparing non-users and someone who used for two years. 

Many have said Marijuana is not a gateway drug and suggest there is no evidence to prove the link.  I asked you to show me a heroin addict that went straight to heroin bypassing marijuana.  This does not say everyone who uses marijuana will use heroin, but does illustrate there is a possibility.   

Alcohol

Most of the effects of alcohol are widely known and most know the effects it has on the liver and kidneys.  Have you ever known anyone with cirrhosis of the liver?  Excessive Alcohol use cause diseases such as liver inflammation (alcoholic hepatitis) or severe liver scarring (cirrhosis). Alcohol-related liver disease can cause death.  Usually causes by years of drinking. 

What people don’t talk about is the effects it has on the brain.  It damages the brain… Alcohol can affect parts of the brain that control movement, speech, judgment, and memory. These effects lead to the familiar signs of drunkenness: difficulty walking, slurred speech, memory lapses, and impulsive behavior. Long-term heavy drinking can shrink the frontal lobes of the brain, which impairs thinking skills.

Prescription Medications

There has been a dramatic increase of prescription drug abuse but the problem becomes the affordability of pain medications like Hydrocodone and Oxycontin.  On the street they are $20 to $60 a pill and when you are taking twenty or more a day it is very expensive.  The cost of heroin has dropped to $3 to $10 a bag.  The drop in heroin prices is because of the supply despite the war on drugs.

When you abuse drugs or alcohol there are consequence and the effects and consequences on our youth are more severe and debilitating.   If kids see adults using and abusing they believe it is okay.  

Freedom.. just another word for nothing left to lose?

Freedom… Freedom of choice is something we all want but what does that really mean.  If we give our children too much freedom they can go down the wrong path or at least will become spoiled.  We all need rules, guidelines and boundaries to feel safe and confident.  It not only keeps us on track, but it gives us the comfort that we are safe from the craziness of others.

Can you imagine if we had the freedom to drive whatever we wanted down the freeway.  Drive any direction we wanted, to drive any speed we wanted.  It would be complete chaos and we would not be safe.

During the 60′s people wanted their freedom to do as they pleased.  It was all about Free Love Man, “make love not war”.  Those same hippies became the baby boomers of today and many of those same hippies have become the 1 percenters who are now hated by the 99 percenters.

Remember the song by Janis Joplin – Me And Bobby Mcgee “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”.  Is that true and is that what happens when you have too much freedom, do you lose direction, do you lose purpose, lose yourself?

Martin Luther. King Jr. in his famous speech he said. “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”  Was he right?  Or was it just the perception of freedom?

What is too much freedom and how much is not enough?  We are guaranteed certain freedoms as citizens of America.  Under the first Amendment we are guaranteed Freedoms of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, and Petition.   Even with those freedoms guaranteed we have restrictions.  The one used most when making this argument is yelling fire in a crowded theatre.  Does that mean it is okay in a theatre that is not crowded?

Now we have those that want to limit our freedoms, put more restriction on our freedom, such as where we practice religion, what type of arms we carry, and even limit expressing our opinion about someone else’s life choices.  What is right?  Do we have the right to offend someone without being sued or threatened?

We have all heard the stories of the baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding because of his religious beliefs and was sued.

Look at what happened at two schools in Europe, they have now had all pork products removed from their menus.  No ham, no bacon, no sausages – no pig at all, even though all these foods are a British tradition the kids love.  Halal is still on the menu though.  Halal is an Arabic word that means “permissible.” In terms of food, it means food that is permissible according to Islamic law. For a meat to be certified “halal,” it cannot be a forbidden cut (such as meat from hindquarters) or animal (such as pork.)

This is all very difficult to discern and how does one decide without having an agenda.  Even the court system seems to have an agenda when ruling on these complicated freedoms.  Has our constitution and freedom become just another political pawn.    They say education is freedom, but is it freedom when someone controls what and how you learn?  They also say money is freedom, but are you just exchanging one freedom for another?

How do we defend our freedoms, how do we fight for our rights without stepping on those around us?    Our founding father laid it out very clearly and it has survived for over 200 hundred years and I now fear it won’t last another 20 years.

Look at what you give up for the perception of safety from terrorism.  Your entire life is exposed to those who claim to protect you, they have the authority to read your email, listen to you phone calls and even track your whereabouts via your personal GPS phone.

Many groups have gained freedoms they fought hard for, but are those new found freedoms at the expense of other freedoms.  Why does it have to be that way?