The Weight Is Not Over
Jerome Green
I had to laugh at myself tonight. Here I was returning from the gym mixing a Glycemic shake for weight loss and my 17-year-old son was mixing a Protein shake for weight gain. How funny life is! Here he is trying to gain 5 lbs to get to 137 and I am trying to lose 50 lbs to get to 185. I had to really laugh at just how ironic life really is. It can seem that we are always at the opposite end of things – searching for the ideal situation.
Similarly, we have complained about how high gas prices were, how much clothing and other goods cost and the inflated prices of buying a home. Now, gas prices are down, goods and services are at bargain prices and homes and cars are priced within reach, but many of us can’t take advantage of it because we either don’t have the cash flow or can’t get a loan.
A lot of the changes we are seeing in our surrounding community, country and world are more about bringing a greater focus to our spiritual connections and the ability to find the victory when the news is promoting despair. This past Christmas I was able to shop for a few presents. My decision was based upon much money I had, but more so, my discernment and my willingness to really allow myself to feel Christmas – and not feel that I had to give physical presents to everyone.
We had a wonderful Christmas night dinner with some companions and my wife Gail came up with a Christmas gift exchange activity that was a lot of fun. So many of our companions expressed great joy in the exchange and the fact that they could really feel Gail’s luvv in the gifts. Luvv needs to become part of the GNP. The paper is not holding up. It’s disappearing as fast as it’s printed. It is crumbling around us and no matter how many Bail Out Plans the government comes up with, in the end, it’s going to take a lot of government work projects to get us going in our new direction.
Learning how to be Happy is becoming another essential skill to have. Being Happy is really about going beyond the creative forces that try and tell us what happiness looks like and feels like. Happiness is in the inner joy that permeates our being and allows the joy to flow with or without the material objects. Being Happy doesn’t mean that you have to be poor or wealthy. It simply requires an open heart, a warm embrace and the ability to not get caught up in the images projected by Madison Avenue that try and tell us how we should be or what we should look like.
In my struggle to lose weight, I sometime catch myself looking back at how I use to look, or feel, and while I want to get back to that person, I will never get the years back or look like I used to. I have a novel thought that just maybe I can actually be better than I use to be. Maybe not run as fast or jump as high, but actually, by using what I’ve learned and getting in both physical and spiritual shape, maybe get in the best shape of my life. The same can be said for the country and the economy. The more we try and capture the past, the more depressed we’ll become. There is no going back to the way it was. For centuries, we, as people, have always lamented on those words “the way it was.”
I know I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward. GE, CEO, Jeff Immlet has talked about a
“Business Reset”, where businesses are spending time trying to go back, but must go forward or they will not prosper. Specific industries will be restructured within the next 6-12 months, and the intersection with government and business in the U.S. and Europe will change for at least a generation. “That companies need to stand for something beyond the bottom line is profound”, said Immlet, “we are in an emotional, social and economic reset”.
As I continue to drink my Glycemic shakes in search of the lbs leaving me, I also have to look at all the other extra weight I might be carrying. This is an ideal time to streamline and, as in my son’s case, build up. Building more character, charisma and purpose are going to be very good traits to have and develop. No matter what the government does, it won’t absolve us of individually developing our own Super Powers to combat the forces of malaise that took over the collective conscientiousness of a country for the past decade or so. We are Super People, with super abilities and we are all being asked to put on our Super Hero uniform and advance our world – one family at a time.
“It will not come easy or happen overnight, and it is altogether likely that things may get worse before they get better. But that is all the more reason for Congress to act without delay. I know the scale of this plan is unprecedented, but so is the severity of our situation. We have already tried the wait-and-see approach to our problems, and it is the same approach that helped lead us to this day of reckoning.” –President-Elect Obama on American recovery and reinvestment
My weight, like our issues, will not go away over night. Shucks, it took me 15 years to put this weight on. It will take resolve, dedication, clear thought and discipline to reduce my weight, and to build a new America.
