Category: Words To Live By

Did you know that the 2020 election cost a record-breaking $14 billion dollars and that doesn’t even include the countless millions being spent now on all these recounts?

 $14 billion!!!

When I learned of this staggering number, it greatly saddened and troubled me. It is so devastating to learn how much money went towards getting a single position in the government, given how much our country, and places around the world for that matter, could have benefited from even a portion of that to help make a dent in some of our worst crises that only continue to grow.

Hunger and homelessness for example are probably two of the top crises our country and many others continue to face. Estimates of how much money would be required to end world hunger start at around $7 billion. As for homelessness, it’s been estimated it would cost around $12.7 billion to resolve, at least for here in America.

As I ponder these two simple statistics, I’m baffled at why so much money has to be spent on something like Presidential campaigning instead. I often wonder what would happen in our country if there was no campaigning whatsoever and all funds normally spend on it were diverted into helping resolve some of our major problems instead.

I mean honestly, is the endless campaigning and all the costs associated with it, including all that negative smear advertising, worth having mouths go empty and homeless die on the streets? These are questions that continue to frustrate me as I ponder them. Why the race for the Presidential seat is far more important than feeding empty stomachs and helping the homeless makes no sense to me. With so much money being wasted in our government that on the grand scheme of things continues to only leave us with the very same problems over and over again, I wonder if anything will ever change this.

Let me present this on a much simpler scale from a page from my own life. There once was a time when I carried debt on my credit card that always seemed to either remain the same or increase from month to month. I had every intention to pay it off and be debt free every single month, yet I kept spending dollar after dollar on things that weren’t important instead of paying my debit off. I would tell myself each time how necessary it was to have this thing or that thing. All that did was keep me from ever resolving my debt problem. The only way it ever changed was to change my spending behaviors. When I finally did and began looking at life differently, realizing how unimportant all those things were that I had kept wasting my money on, I was able to pay all my debt off and have kept it that way ever since.

That’s why I feel I can safely say our country isn’t ever going to resolve any of its major crisis’s like hunger and homelessness so long as it keeps doing things like spending billions of dollars on something like Presidential political campaigning.

I think what I find most ironic in all this though is that I read recently that the majority of people in this election at least, had already made up their minds as to whom they were going to vote for, long before the Presidential campaigning even began.

Nevertheless, I often believe it comes down to each of us to making an impact upon some of these terrible crises like hunger and homelessness. I know there is personally a lot more I can do to help and I’ll continue to do my best to make a difference. I only pray that one day our government might do better themselves by shifting their focus away from spending exorbitant amounts of money on things like Presidential campaigning and instead use that money to save a few souls who are far worthier and deserving of that money.

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

I’ve lived in many cities across several states, visited plenty of places around this country and the world, and been in awe of the many unique differences amongst them all. But, if there’s one thing I’ve seen that’s been the same no matter where I’ve been, it’s the presence of impatient drivers.

While many people might claim their city to have the worst drivers in the world, no matter where I’ve been there always seems to be drivers riding on other car’s bumpers, angrily beeping their horns, flipping people off, and swearing profusely. Thankfully, I’m not one of them anymore, because I’ve learned that life is far more about the journey rather than the destination. Unfortunately, most drivers though are more concerned about their destinations rather than the journey.

I was greatly reminded of this just recently when heading home one afternoon while taking a right turn onto a bridge. Once safely on the bridge, a car suddenly raced up behind me mere feet from my rear bumper. With headlights flashing, they abruptly doubled their speed and passed on my right, then immediately cut me off to take the same turn I was about to take. A minute later, I found myself behind them, as they had gotten stuck behind another vehicle going the speed limit like I had been. In the end, the impatient driver arrived at their location no faster than if they had just remained behind me. Ironically, there’s been numerous studies done of this over the years, where two drivers leave for the same destination at the same time, with one driver doing the impatient type of driving, while the other doing the speed limit. In almost every case, the impatient driver arrived mere minutes ahead of the other.

In light of that, why is saving mere minutes so important to so many drivers all around the world? The amount of stress and tension in doing so, as well as all the missed opportunities for mindfulness is inconceivable. Personally, based upon my old aggressive patterns of driving, I tend to believe impatient driving is based upon the sole desire to gain some semblance of control in life, control of something because life often feels so very out of control for so many of us.

Regardless, while I know there are times in life where drivers might truly have an emergency that leads them to impatiently drive somewhere, the majority simply do it for the perceived notion that it’s far more important to get to their destination as quick as possible, rather than to experience the journey there.

I’ve struggled with my partner quite a bit with this over the many years we’ve been together, as he tends to be very impatient with other drivers on the road. His impatient driving usually puts him into bad moods and at times even causes him to miss out on having spiritually connecting moments with me. While I once was just like him on the road on a daily basis, it changed after I spent 10 days in silence on a meditation retreat back in 2005. There, I learned all about the importance of slowing down and paying attention to the journey rather than always racing to some destination.

So, while I may be more successful now with patient driving because of that retreat, I am learning that this lesson  can be applied to many other areas of my life as well and tend to believe that the more I focus on being present on the journey instead of racing towards my destinations in life, I’ll probably be able to experience far more peace and joy along the way…

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

Recently, I had a discussion with a dear friend from recovery here in the Toledo area who is a strong Trump supporter. Being how relatively neutral I’ve been throughout this entire election process, I felt comfortable enough to ask them how they felt post-election. I didn’t expect the conversation to last as long as it did, much of which they talked about their belief that the entire voting process was fraudulent. They had strong arguments surrounding it all, which I really tried to remain neutral about, but eventually I opted not to. Before I talk about that though, I want to briefly take the time to be politically outspoken for once, being how I’m normally so very apolitical.

When Hilary Clinton lost in 2016, she gracefully called Donald Trump and conceded, wishing him the best. Although she won the popular vote, she failed to secure enough votes in the electoral college, something that continues to bother me with our Presidential voting process, but alas that discussion is for another time and day. Nevertheless, there wasn’t much talk of conspiracies or fraudulent voting back then, not from Hilary, nor from the majority of her constituents, of which I really wasn’t one of, but then again, I wasn’t much of a Trump supporter either. Oh, and in case you may be wondering in light of that information, I’m registered Independent. Anyway, over the past year, as an Independent, I’ve watched without taking sides our President constantly speak of his worries of fraudulent voting, especially via mail-in ballots. When election night finally arrived, while Trump was showing a lead, mail-in ballots and provisional ballots hadn’t been factored in yet, but as soon as they began to, showing Biden taking over the lead, Trump started to claim fraud, believing there was no way he should be losing. His denial via claim of voter fraud has now convinced many of his avid fanbase that it must be true, which is exactly what my dear Trump friend told me in our extended discussion. While no voting fraud has actually been proven at the time of me writing this article, which is about a week ago now, what is true is that it doesn’t matter whether there was fraud or wasn’t, because all it has created is massive doubt, anger, judgments, and plenty of increased negativity in an already unsettled and negative-feeling nation. Even worse, it’s now also cast shade on President-elect Biden, something that my friend was doing at points during our conversation, which is specifically what led me to move out of remaining neutral. When I did, I quoted a passage from the Bible in Matthew 7:3-4.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye. How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? (NIV)

Look, I know how easy it is to throw shade on someone, pointing the finger, especially when things aren’t going the way our minds think they should be going. But to judge this entire voting process, claiming it’s fraudulent and then pointing out specks in it or President-elect Biden’s eyes is going against the very core beliefs that the Bible tells followers of Christ to live.

How many of us have been fraudulent in some way in our lives? Has any of us actually been 100% truthful throughout our entire lives? I can’t imagine any of us have been. Thus, pointing the finger at Biden, or the Democratic party, or this voting process and saying it’s all fraudulent, when we ourselves have committed our own cases of fraud at various points in our lives is being hypocritical.

I’ll be the first to be honest and say, I’ve been fraudulent. I’ve led people on, made people believe things that I knew not to be true, convinced them of things to get my way, lied more times than I can count, and became guilty in so many ways because of it all. Yet, I often pointed out the speck others eyes never once looking at the plank in my own. All that did was create more division and left me lacking any real integrity. Thankfully, I’ve worked hard to change that and honestly wish all those who still support Trump would do the same. I wish each would look at their own actions and past transgressions, at their own potential fraud, rather than to continue pointing negative fingers at this election and ultimately of Biden.

My sole French-Canadian friend asked me very recently, “What the hell is wrong with my country?” What’s wrong isn’t a potentially fraudulent election, or a wrongly-elected President, or the Republican or Democratic party, or any of those political conspiracies either. We are what’s wrong. We’re the problem. Because we keep pointing our fingers outward, over and over again, failing to ever look in the mirror at our own cases of fraud.

Can you actually say you’ve never lied, cheated, stolen, or ever lived in any sort of dishonesty in your life? Can you truly say you’ve never been fraudulent on any level to anyone or anything? I most assuredly can’t say that and instead will most assuredly say that I have been fraudulent towards plenty of others in my life. So, the only thing I should be doing is looking in the mirror at the plank in my own eye, which if you know me, or regularly read my blog, then you know I try to do just that.

When we all truly stop believing the problem in this country is in things like our leadership, potential voting fraud, conspiracies, or in anything else outside of us, maybe then our country will finally become a truly united nation. Until then, believing in things like voting fraud, political conspiracies, and angrily judging the other political side or the new President  is only going to continue leaving us all as a very divided nation and a country in turmoil.

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