Jim Laudato’s Post

Transcript

You didn't think I'd missed today, did you? And I had 12 September 12. Yeah, so. There you go, right? September 11th was pretty dark. Pretty dark in September 12th. A little light shined. A little light shined. And we came together right for something bigger than ourselves with what we had. And it was enough. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. Some gave blood, some gave money, some gave their lives, some gave prayers, some gave food, some gave time. It does does not matter the generosity on that day. And and the the unity on that day, it was like no other that I experienced in my lifetime. Of course, there's other times that people might have experienced that. And. That's the space I want to be in all the time. So the question is, do we need to contact or if you do, we need a catastrophic event to unify us? And the answer is no. The answer is no. So as we remember today, remember we want to be more like. Who we were, you know. Who we were and how do we get back to that place? You know, are we too far gone to even consider that? And I say absolutely not, because if you could do it one time, you could do it all the time. The suit keep attacking each other, we don't attack the problem. We want to attack the problem, not each other. The problem is fear. We're all afraid. We're all afraid. And so you could look at somebody else and find something in common with them. You know, the two eyes that they have, the lips that they have, the two legs, that whatever, it doesn't matter, right? They're more likely than they are different. Right. We keep missing the opportunity to grow because we're afraid of the other person, because they're not like us. So you listen to the gospel today, Luke. He's like, what's so unusual about that? Like, do you want to be so average that we just hang around the same thing, same people that were alike. We're Americans. We're the same. We see things differently, right? We want things differently. Everybody does. Don't be afraid of somebody else's vision. You can't see what they see and they can't see what you see. But the fear inside of you, the program that we tell yourself is this is a bad thing, this is a bad thing, this is a bad thing, and it separates us. It creates division. Until it goes too far. Until it goes too far, then we kind of reel it back in. Why do we have to wait till it goes too far? We don't have to, right? Because Les Brown tell you this, right? Unless you handle it with grace, it will stain your face. Unless you handle it with grace, it will stay in your face. And what does he mean by that? He means that until you empathize, until you can understand something, right? You could see what they see a little bit because you're just you're, you're not that much different. Then you could start to reconcile. You gotta do that to yourself first. The reason you're so hard on somebody else, the reason we're so hard on somebody else, because we're so hard on ourselves. Where you say, well, if I wasn't hard on myself, I wouldn't get to where I was at. Yeah, you wouldn't get to where you're at and you wouldn't be as unhappy as you are. That's called self sabotage. The attack is within. Fight your own fear. Attack the problem. The fear within attack, that with empathy being like, you know what? Yeah, you know what? I get afraid just like everyone else does, you know, when I'm human and that's that, That's alright. But you know, I'm gonna show up anyway for the sake of something bigger than me, like we did on 9/12. I'm gonna show up no matter what. Yeah, I got flaws. Yeah. I'm not there. I'm not great all the time. Yeah, I got things that spin in my head you don't even want to hear. Trust me. But I'm gonna show up anyway. Why? Cause someone asked me to. It's my duty. It's my obligation. Because why? Because you got your you got this life for nothing. And what you do with it, it's a gift. And what you do with it is your gift back. But if you spend the time, if we spend the time. Thinking negative thoughts, you know, speaking negative thoughts, spinning the vortex and negative thoughts you just create. We're just creating more division and more division and more division. And trust me, listen, I, I spit out my share of negativity to myself and to others. I know I'm not perfect and I'm working on it and I'm working and we all are working on it. If you hold space and stay there until that thing in the back of your mind, it's like, Oh no, be careful here. Watch out for that. You tell him to shut up. Just shut up. Shut up and fish. Shut up and stay. Shut up and keep your line in the water. Why? Because it's in. It's necessary for the sake of all of us as Americans. As Americans, let's not wait for 911, have a 912 kind of day. Handle it with empathy. Understand your neighbor, OK, you go. I don't understand them. I don't understand them. I don't because we don't understand ourselves. Stay where you are. Keep your feet. When that thing tells you in the back of your mind that you need to do something, tell them you're not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere, not this time. You're going to get there and you're going to stay there and you're going to slow down. You're going to learn something, right? Get out of your head and into your feet. Plant your feet and grow roots and stay there. For the sake of all of us and do a little part just you don't have to do it all, just do something small. In a create a big ripple effect, just create your own little world, right? And spend and spend and spend. And you tell it that we don't do that anymore. You tell your, your, your, your system. You're, you're tell that thing that's running in the background like, no, no, we don't do that anymore. We don't hate our brothers anymore. We don't hate our sisters anymore. We don't do that anymore, right? And I don't hate myself. Have some self respect 1st and then you can have respect for somebody else. And be cool with you. Yeah, we all have negative spin. Yeah, we all create the vision. Yeah, we all have regrets from the past, and we can't solve sawdust. But we could certainly stand here and start something new. How's that sound? Today. Today is your day. Today is my day. Right. Unify, right? You got everything you need and whatever you have is enough. And then tomorrow something else. And then tomorrow something else. You're lifting a weight. You're building a muscle. Let's get back together, alright? Have a nice talk kind of day. Bringing people together at the human level with respect. A light shining. Let's keep it lit. Take care yourself, I love you.