Category: Daily Reflection

“Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.” (Harry S. Truman)
“Love your neighbor as yourself…” (Matthew 22:39)

When I saw multiple news clips recently where people were literally fighting over toilet paper in the aisles of grocery stores, I was completely appalled, disgusted, and sad all at the same time because it truly showed what happens to the mindset of the masses when something like a pandemic occurs.

Ironically, my partner Chris and I were running exceptionally low on toilet paper ourselves just last week. In light of that, I headed to the local Kroger store hoping some might actually be left. I was completely shocked to discover that a small supply was still left on the shelves there! As I gazed over the remaining packages, there was that moment where my ego said, hmmm, maybe I should just buy a few packs like everyone else has, just in case. Thankfully, I listen more to my heart these days because listening to my ego only ever led to selfish and greedy-based actions. So, I picked up one package and headed to the check-out shortly thereafter. As I stood there and scanned the package, along with the few other random items I had needed, I realized how much fear is the main culprit for what’s going on in this world right now, like fighting and hoarding over things like toilet paper.

The fact is, if everyone bought themselves what they truly needed for their daily consumptions, instead of what their fear leads them to believe, there’d definitely be enough to go around. Yet, one act of selfishness and greed, say someone buying a dozen packages of toilet paper, leads to fear in another they won’t have enough, so they in turn buy a bunch as well, until quite rapidly all of it is gone. Hence, the fighting that soon takes place over a remaining package left standing on a shelf. And of course, I mustn’t forget to mention those who always look to make a buck off of the unfortunate by selling some of their haul on the Internet for an exorbitant cost, knowing if the crisis continues, someone will buy it.

You see, that’s the problem with our country. It’s not with our leaders, like those in political or religious power, or with any of our specific laws and policies either. It’s with us. It’s our selfishness and greed and not someone else’s. Deep down, when fear begins to consume us, we forget all about loving one another, and helping our neighbor, which is pretty sad considering 65 percent of the people in the United States currently label themselves as Christians, as based upon statistics from 2019.

Can you imagine what would happen if a far greater pandemic occurred, where death tolls were in the hundreds of millions to even billions? If such an apocalyptic event was to happen, most of those who say they are faithful to the Lord would probably easily forget their Christian roots, their Biblical trainings, and that little reminder from Christ that one of the two most important commandments is to always love your neighbor as you love yourself.

That’s why all this selfishness and greed I’ve seen in recent weeks due to the Coronavirus totally sickens me. It sickens me to see that so many people of faith don’t really care about their neighbors right now. And it sickens me to realize the problem really is with all of us, yet the majority keep blaming someone or something else. Maybe if people would start looking at their own actions instead of pointing the finger during hard times like this, we may actually find we have enough of everything to go around, even with things like toilet paper.

Dear God, I pray You forgive our world for the selfishness and greed of so many of us. Help me to always remember what Christ once said about loving my neighbors, as I’m sure there will come a day when I need them as much as they need me.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

“Progress is impossible without change. Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” (George Bernard Shaw)

Ok. I admit it. I was totally stuck in the 80’s, or maybe the 90’s at best, with my clothing at least. Baggy jeans, baggy shirts, it was pretty much baggy everything I ever wore on my body, except for my socks and underwear of course. Being as tall as I am and as skinny as I am, I always felt that wearing baggy clothes would cover some of that up. On some level, I was rather afraid to change that. Many often suggested I should, but I was too afraid I’d look like that beanpole again I was once called constantly throughout my childhood. Even after I did an AA commitment in a jail recently, where an inmate laughed and said I was still rocking the 80’s look, I refused to change my fashion, mostly out of fear. But, after a picture was taken of me wearing some of my dress clothes, seeing how baggy it all looked on me, almost as if I had lost a bunch of weight and didn’t have any clothes that fit, I started to think that maybe indeed it might be time to change this part of me. It took two pairs of jeans ripping a few days apart, and only one pair left in a shabby state to ultimately propel me in that direction.

So, I went to Kohl’s and quickly discovered the Levis number I had worn for so long had been discontinued, probably because the style was no longer in fashion! Regardless, I proceeded to try on hundreds, yes, I do mean hundreds, of pairs of jeans from Levis, to Lee’s, to a number of other brands, until I finally came down to two styles from a company called Urban Pipeline. Ironically, one was the very same baggy look I’d been wearing for decades, while the other, well let’s just say I finally had a butt when I wore them! As I stared in the mirror switching from one to the other, over and over again, fear of change consumed me. And then quite abruptly, I looked in the mirror and said it was time to change a part of me I’d been resistant to for the majority of my life. So much had already changed within me in the past decade with all the spiritual work I’ve been doing to heal myself. Maybe it was time to honor that by changing what I wore? And so, I did. I bought the new form-fitting style, all seven colors of it, in good old OCD fashion! LOL! And you know what? I’ve actually felt a whole lot better ever since! I’ve felt more confident and have come to really accept this new look on me and so has everyone else it seems, as a number of friends have paid me compliments. I’m now starting to change out my other clothes because of it and am committed to bringing myself completely out of the 80’s and 90’s and fully into the 2020’s!

In the end, people may think my sudden fashion change is due to some mid-life crisis. But, I say that maybe I finally found the willingness to change a part of me that was once Fort Knox resistant to it, and thank God for that! Because the result of such a minor change has led to a huge increase in the amount of love and acceptance I now have for myself!

I wish to always be open and willing to change. Change that will continue to help me grow in my self-confidence and change that will help me to grow closer to the Source that lives within me and around me. 

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

“To overcome fear, here’s all you have to do: Realize the fear is there, and do the action you fear anyway.” (Peter McWilliams)

Every day for the past year I logged into my WordPress account to do my daily work on this blog, and each time I did, I’d see an indicator glaring at me, letting me know a new software update was ready to be downloaded for a plugin that’s been a backbone to my site since the beginning. The last time I updated this plugin was way back in mid-February of 2019 when a crash occurred during the middle of it, taking my site down along with it. It caused me much anxiety, mostly because I didn’t know what to do at the time to correct the problem. Even worse, it had been the second time I had experienced a major issue when updating this plugin. After unsuccessfully trying to find another plugin that could replace it, I spent a considerable amount of time getting my site corrected, along with updating to the latest version of this plugin. Ironically, after I did, a new version immediately became available, causing me great fear and stress. I decided to put the update off because of it. Days, turned into weeks, turned into months, till eventually a year went by without me hitting that update button. The version number continued to grow, while I didn’t, as fear kept me a prisoner. Software is a funny thing though. If you don’t keep current with its updates, eventually problems will occur. That’s why I decided one evening in the midst of fear and frustration over it all, to tell God I’d do the stupid update if my plans the next day got cancelled somehow. And wouldn’t you know, the next day the friend I was supposed to spend it with cancelled because he was sick. So, I kept my promise and made sure the update button got pressed that day. Thirty seconds after, the update had successfully completed with no issues.

All that fear…for an entire year…for what?!  I gained nothing from it and most likely could have updated the software long ago with no problems. Life has been a lot like that for me over the years. Putting things off that I was afraid to face, until the pain of not doing so essentially forced me to work through it. And every time I did, the pain of working through it was far less than the pain of me sitting in all that fear for as long as I did!

I’m tired of living in fear over the dumbest of things like a software update. Living in fear has robbed me of being at peace and experiencing joy. I’m thankful for the reminder this software update gave me, that it’s never worth putting something off, when the only reason for doing so is out of fear.

Dear God, fear has consumed me so many times in my life, keeping me a prisoner more than not, until I finally become ready to tackle whatever the issue is. I pray for the strength to face all those fears and to stop letting my life remain on hold because of them.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson