Who Do We Want to Be Now

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

What is going on, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert, and today is Monday, January 11. And, you know, we find ourselves in trying times. Last week, we had a situation where a group of people feeling extraordinarily disenfranchised stormed the US Capitol.

And some of the things have happened over the last six months. Right? We've we're all in a situation where a pandemic has come into the country. People got scared. Draconian measures got laid out by many US governors in many areas.

People lost their jobs. People feel like they're not able to feed their families. People feel like their freedoms are being infringed upon. And then we had other situations over the summer where, you know, we had protests due to police brutality, due to black men getting shot, getting killed. And we had situations where violence broke out there and people laid siege to cities, ruined businesses.

And the truth is that regardless of how you look at these things, and I'm I'm, you know, offering no judgment here on on which is better, which is worse, or anything like that, it all sucks. It's all awful. It's all a situation that I never thought I'd see here in The United States, and I think that many people who listen to this podcast feel the same way. And I think a lot of people are scared, and rightfully so. They're scared that, you know, the things that that we fought for as a community, The US veteran community, that when we when we served, we feel like a lot of those things are are that we fought for are in danger, our freedoms, our freedoms of speech, right, our rights to bear arms, our our our our society in general.

We feel like all of that is in danger. And, you know, in times like this, it's easy to get disillusioned. It's easy to to to take your eye off of things. And, you know, I think that in many ways, the way our government, the way that that big tech is responding to this isn't isn't helping anything. You know, when you you start silencing one group of people, there's many conservatives out there who feel like they're being silenced right now.

It basically pushes people to the extremes. Right? And we have this kind of dichotomy that's existing out there right now. Right? You're you're either a socialist or a right wing fascist, and that's not that's not how people actually view themselves.

Right? You know, I don't think that anybody who who supports president Trump, maybe a few people, but but the 75,000,000 people out there who supported president Trump, I know that they don't feel like they're fascists. And I also know that the millions of people who voted for president-elect Biden, many of them don't feel like they're socialists. And the reality is that this dichotomy shouldn't exist in this country, the the dichotomy between socialism and fascism. And what's essentially happening is because we can't debate, because, you know, different people are being pushed out of the debate, because different people are are being characterized as as one thing or another, what's happening is it seems like everybody needs to retreat and gather under these two banners, the banners of two failed ideologies that should have died on battlefields in the twentieth century.

And here we are. Right? We are all in this right now. It's in our faces, and there there's not much we can do. So how do we avoid this?

How do we avoid going down the path toward a future of violence, a future of conflict in this country that, you know, is gonna be bad for us, bad for our children, bad for our children's children, and, you know, bad for humankind in general. Because I believe, and I still believe this with all my heart, that The United States is the last great hope for mankind. I believe that the rest of the world looks upon us as a shining city on the hill. And when they see things like this going on in in in this great place, this great nation, it doesn't bode well for for our future. So I think the question is this.

It's it's it's in who do we wanna be throughout all this? Who do we wanna be? Right? Do we want to be the people who gave up on the last greatest hope of mankind, who who threw it all in the trash and who ruined everything? Or do we wanna solve these problems, come to a a real and relevant debate, and actually develop solutions for the things occurring out there in society and occurring in our government right now.

And you might feel like you don't have an impact there. You might feel like, hey, big tech, it shut me down. Hey, you might feel like, you know, we don't have any other choice, but the truth is we do. And I think the choice incumbent on all of us is that we get to decide. Right?

We get to decide how our lives are gonna be. We get to decide how we're gonna respond. We get to decide what we're gonna do, and we get to decide whether we're just gonna sit back and observe this shit show or if we're gonna help out in being part of the solution for the problem. And, of course, that starts by by taking care of ourselves. Right?

Doing what we can to keep ourselves healthy. Right? Working out, eating right, doing what we can to get our personal finances in order. You know, make sure you're working hard and and saving money, not spending your money on needless stuff. Right?

And if you're in a situation right now where your job has been shut down due to COVID, then what you need to be doing is you need to figure out how you're gonna pivot, how you're gonna turn it around. And then beyond that, I think one thing we've discovered during this period is that our local leaders matter. Our local elections matter. Who your governor is matters a whole lot. Who your mayor is matters a whole lot.

Who your city council is matters a whole lot, and actually a lot more than the impact of the federal government. So we need to be stepping up in our communities, and we need to be taking an active role in ensuring that our local leaders meet the values that that we want, that they're leading us in a way that is gonna lead us to prosperity, that is gonna lead us beyond these types of situations. Because if you don't have a good local leader, I think a lot of the impact there is on display for your eyes right now. And I think we all have to consider what the alternatives are. Right?

What does this place look like if these problems don't get solved? And I know there are so many of you out there who know violence, who know what a world where war and violence are running rampant looks like. And I don't think that there's any of you out there who wanna see that here. I don't think that there's any of you out here who want it to be pushed to that level. And so if we want to avoid that, I think it's incumbent upon all of us to step up, to have level heads, to think about who we wanna be in this time in history.

So I hope that all makes sense. I'm gonna be talking about these issues and and others further as we move along here on the podcast. This week, I'm gonna be talking a good bit about health and fitness on Wednesday. And on Friday, I'm gonna be talking about finances during 2021. So make sure you stay tuned for those episodes.

And with that, I wanna thank you so much for listening. Get out there and live your best lives while you can. This is Chris Albert with Warrior Soul podcast, and I am out.