Just a little something to think about: “Creators are not reactionary, they are visionary,” Richard Miller.  There are certain people who can’t walk through this world in the ordinary way.  They know something else, they see something else, more importantly they know and see in a different way.  It isn’t just knowing more, it’s knowing differently.  We all have gifts, intensely personal, unique gifts that we are meant to develop and share with the world.  We are not meant to be copies of each other, each running around living the same lives.  We are meant to create.  Creation can be (and is) inspired by something happening but it is rarely generated from that state.  When we react, it’s a response to stimuli.  We can get to a place where our responses are automatic.  Most of what we do every day is automatic—we have our routines, we think the same thoughts.  Creation doesn’t come from automated patterns we picked up to survive, it comes from breaking those patterns. The creation comes from the vision of what can be.  In this way, they are the thermostat not the thermometer like we talked about a few weeks ago.  It isn’t that things don’t happen to them, they just react differently—seeing opportunity in everything.

Recognizing potential and taking a blank canvas and turning it into something else is the mark of a visionary.  I used to fear changing something from its original state.  What if I messed it up?  What if I can’t get it back to how it was “supposed” to be?  See yesterday’s piece for reference to what happens when we want to leave things in perfection and they go unused: they lose all of their functionality and can still wither away, maybe they look pretty in their package but they have failed to do what they were meant to do and the end up discarded, unused, all of that potential lost.  A blank canvas isn’t something to be preserved as it is.  A blank canvas is something to be treasured for what it will become, for what can be seen only by us until we bring it to life.  Life is all about creation and expansion.  It is about taking the unknown, the unseen and making it seen to the world.  It’s taking the magic inside of us and sharing it, letting it create a light that can shine on and ignite the way for others.     

I want to follow up on the cost of inaction with a personal story today.  I grew up in a house with a lot of fear of loss. We always planned on things months out, always had plenty of things to take care of us long term if something happened or to accommodate a change in plans.  Believe me, we were very fortunate in that regard.  However, a pattern developed where we would have all of these things and not be able to use them before they went bad….we would overstuff and overconsume in the name of being prepared, only to not have what we needed when the time came or we would have to throw things out that had potentially been really good or helpful but we never used them.  My mom even had a newer car that she hardly ever drove because she would take my dad’s car, and this poor vehicle had wear from disuse.  It literally struggled because it hadn’t been used.  

So my story is this: I continued that pattern, always being prepared whether it was a surplus of pens or over the counter medicines or makeup, or toys or clothes etc. etc.  The other day I was looking for a hair tool and I saw that I had a whole stash of unopened vitamins and remedies that I never used—and had forgotten about.  As I started going through them, I realized that about half were expired.  The same day, I was at my desk working on a project and I wanted a new color pen.  I had a set of old pens in my desk for YEARS that I had been waiting to use because I hadn’t ever been able to find the color after my initial purchase.  Well, I decided that it was the day to use these pens and as soon as I started writing with them, I knew they were dead.  They had never been used, they were full of ink, and no matter what I did, the ink just would not flow—it had dried up before I could even use it.  So all of this preparation over the years, the accumulation of stuff, the anticipation of the “right time” to use these things led to their death.  It was wasted. 

The point of this story is exactly what I discussed about Loren’s quote yesterday.  When we refuse to move or take actions we know we need to, we let it go to waste.  Don’t let our creative talent, our lives go to waste because we are waiting for the proper moment.  Don’t sit on our laurels thinking that we have done what we can and that our past success is enough.  No, we need to adapt and take account of what we are working with now and we need to never take for granted the time we have and the fact that we can do it NOW.  There isn’t anything else but now, and now moves quickly.  Before we know it, the time passes and we can’t get that back—and that is the greatest cost of inaction: the waste of our greatest resource.  Life can be challenging enough without looking back and wishing we’d done something differently when we had the chance.  Take the chance now.  Live now before we take all the perfectly pretty, unused, unopened packages to the grave simply because they were never used.  It’s said the most expensive place in the world is the graveyard because of the ideas that people died with.  Don’t let our lives become that version of the story.  Live.  Enjoy now.    

“Stop worrying about the ROI and worry about the COI—the cost of your inaction,” Loren Ridinger.  This quote floored me—I will share some personal experiences related to this tomorrow but today I want to discuss the content of it at a high level.  Our society tends to focus on things that have little in the way of producing desired results—or producing any results at all.  Times have changed and we know the quality of products, foods, and other goods has gone down so we have become hyper focused on what we get from our money.  I completely understand and I’m in that boat as well.  But instead of getting mad about it, we can make better decisions.  What if instead of focusing on what we get out of something, we look at what we can DO about it. There comes a point where we may not get a return and we will find ourselves wanting of reason for what happened and why we didn’t get anything out of it.  We have the ability to shift that focus and break the habit by looking at what we intend to get out of it and what our purpose is BEFORE taking action.  If the action won’t drive the result we are looking for or get us closer, then that is a loss.  But sitting there constantly planning and not acting takes away any hope of finding out what the result could be.

We have a limited time on this beautiful Earth and when we start looking at how we spend it honestly, most people feel a little disheartened.  I know I was devastated to start looking at the consequences of repeating the same story for so many years.  I went through a deep depression fearing and regretting all the time I had lost, unsure of how to move forward to do something new, something that would get me where I wanted to go.  We have to reconcile where our actions will take us and sometimes we have to admit what we aren’t doing or when we can do more.  I’m not saying that we need to push ourselves to the brink to validate our existence, but I am saying that we need to be selective in what we choose to partake in.  We need to be particular in how we spend our time.  When we let time slip away, that is a non-refundable transaction.  Time is the only resource when spent, is gone forever.  Instead of worrying about how we spend time, look at how we can create time.  We do that my making choices in what we do.  We say no to things that are unfulfilling and say yes to the things that call to us—even if they scare us.  Don’t allow our lives to become a series of “when it happens” or “I can’t do that now” when it comes to our dreams.  Make it a question of “How do we do this?”  and “what actions can I take that will get me closer to where I want to be?”  What actions move us forward. 

The good news in this is we are able to shift focus at any time.  We can move from worrying about what we get from something and shift it to what happens when we do nothing.  Instead of thinking about the perfect action to take and becoming paralyzed with indecision, we can simply begin moving.  I know brilliant people who have wasted their lives hoping someone would see them and give them an opportunity.  I know people who struggled in other areas but they believed so fiercely in themselves they took shots that changed their lives.  We’ve talked about it many times here: once we start moving, we start seeing other options.  All it takes is choosing to start and then starting.  The implications of doing nothing are far scarier than taking action and maybe not making it.  At least if we take the shot, we have a chance of achieving what we set out to, and even if we don’t get there, we will be closer to where we want to be.  There is no downside to going for it because we learn and we find other opportunity.  When we sit there, nothing happens.  I don’t want to make the mistake of waiting for the moment to fall in my lap, I want to create moments.  I want to create joy and success and I want to make that possible for others as well. So, quite simply, MAKE THE MOVE. 

“All of your life will be judged, none of that matters.  What matters is the condition of your soul,” source unknown.  I’m not a particularly religious person but I have strong belief and faith in the soul and our purpose here as well as the connection to something bigger.  Well, at least I believe it exists, I haven’t been very good about always staying connected myself.  Regardless, I interpreted this quote as something bigger as well.  I know our actions aren’t always a good indicator of our condition, our thoughts, and beliefs.  People are reactive creatures and we will respond based on what we know from previous experience about how to respond to any type of stimuli.  Actions do matter in the regard that our actions have consequences and impact that expands beyond our daily functions.  With that being said, we can’t always judge actions at face value.  We need to understand the intent behind them.  We also need to be able to understand our own intentions when we choose to take actions.

Intention can be examined without looking at the soul because intention speaks to everything from survival, to relationships, to finding joy, to addressing toxic situations in our lives.  There is a reason behind everything we do, even the subconscious actions and routines we settle into—those are often the most telling of our intention.  If we allow them to remain subconscious, we function like a robot and there seems to be no purpose.  If we look at the behaviors we developed to cope or even just as what we were taught, we can see patterns.  It takes a lot to look at this, but once we do, we know it’s worth it because we can understand if there is a reason for it or a behavior we can change.  Looking deeper and seeing that we eat a certain way out of fear can help us eliminate the fear and change the response we developed. That’s when progress happens.

There comes a point when we realize that we only have so much time on this Earth and we have to address whether or not we are going to waste it because one person (or even a group of people) had an opinion about it.  It doesn’t matter.  In one hundred years from now, chances are they may not even know our names.  I know I can’t speak to the character of my great-grandfather or my great-great grandfather—I never knew them.  I know parts of the story and how they got here, but I don’t know who they were or what they were like on a daily basis.  We too will become strangers to this world at some point, so we can let go of the pressure of thinking someone else’s opinion can determine our abilities.  Follow our desire, follow our passion, find our purpose and do that.  We are trained to judge and make determinations about people, we are not exempt from others judging us as well.  Some will say what we do is good, others will not, and what works for one may not work for the other.  So follow what we know is right for us.  We have one go around on this Earth, make it matter to ourselves.         

The body holds what the mind can’t process.  If we review yesterday’s piece on frequency, it may be a little easier to see how this can happen, how the frequency we put out isn’t familiar to us so we end up with dysfunction. The mind is a powerful thing and it will do whatever it can to protect itself.  It’s a biological supercomputer that responds to input and based on the programming, it can respond differently to the same input.  With that being said, we always need to remember that we are responsible for what we put in the mind.  We can choose who and what we surround ourselves with, the content we take in.  If we take in negative, eventually the mind expects negative and becomes unfamiliar with how to process or choose positive.  When we behave in ways that aren’t aligned with our authentic selves (again, read yesterday’s piece if you haven’t) we are creating misfires in the mind and making it really difficult to function in a natural way.

There is also the trauma facet of this.  I know trauma can be a polarizing subject with those who don’t believe in the impact of trauma all the way to those who embrace any opportunity to be a victim.  The reality is trauma can be something different for everyone—that is 100% true.  Trauma is defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience, and I would add that it’s a lingering pattern of negative response/coping tactics to that trigger.  When the mind doesn’t understand what happened to itself, or the mind/body/soul, it creates confusion on how to shift the frequency.  The body will absolutely shove that down in the body and it will manifest physically.  When we seek to move forward in life and adjust our frequency, we need to address these physical components so we are able to sync our mind with our actions.  Our thoughts and beliefs need to be aligned with what we do in order to move forward.      

On that last part, I want to encourage all people dealing with any type of trauma to understand that coping with trauma means addressing it and talking about it in a relaxed state.  The goal isn’t to feel it again, it’s to process it so it can flow out of the body.  That isn’t something we need to hold onto.  That is something that merely holds us back and keeps us from becoming who we are meant to be.  Taking care of ourselves is the best way to process these things.  It can start with a simple question like, “Why does my back hurt all the time?” and go down the path of eliminating a physical cause and start looking a little deeper, we may find there are things we are holding onto and those things become a lead weight in our lives.  In the process of healing and letting go, in self-improvement, self-care and addressing the physical and mental and spiritual aspect of ourselves needs to be addressed as well.  Let go of the fear, and look for the answer.

Gary Brecka is a wealth of information, and if you haven’t heard of him, do yourself a favor, go find him and give him a listen on any social media platform.  With that being said, I listened to one of his lectures the other day and he brought up frequency.  We’ve been discussing the importance of aligning, frequency, honesty with ourselves, honoring desire for quite some time now—Gary was able to explain WHY this is so important and it blew my mind.  We talk and talk in circles about improving ourselves and I truly believe in every word I’ve shared, but even I admit that it’s been challenging to articulate the reason why we need to do this behind it outside of it feeling good to be authentic.  Hearing Gary’s discussion on it put all of those words into something tangible and “provable” for those who need a little encouragement/to see it first before jumping into anything.  He talked about the SPANE study (The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience) and the measurable results this group was able to find related to frequencies humans emitted when they were feeling certain things (as general as happiness and sadness and as specific as joy and despair). 

The result was this: Authenticity is the most powerful frequency to leave the body—four times the amplitude of love.  In those terms, being authentic, honest, and aligned with who we are is probably the most important thing we can do.  In the grand search for meaning, becoming who we are is as simple (and complex) as it is.  Being who we are and learning to work with others in a complementary and communicative way allows us to expand and create in ways that help us, not hinder us.  We have to start with decisions that help us as individuals.  The other part of this study was defining authenticity and the conclusion was that authenticity only occurs when words are truthful and they believed what they were saying.  That in itself is evidence that what we think and what we believe have a massive impact on the results we see in the world.  Further this is also evidence that when we align our thoughts/beliefs WITH our actions, we will see the desired results.  This means we have some modicum of control over our experience in this life based on what we think and believe.

I don’t take things at face value so I have more to study on this topic, but the findings put logical sense to why we want to monitor our thoughts and behaviors, more specifically why we want to align our thoughts and behaviors. At the most literal level we are energy. When we have an issue with our brains or hearts, we have monitors that literally measure the electrical output—the heart keeps its rhythm through nodes that fire electrical impulses.  Our brains light up in different areas depending on the thought or action and emotion associated with it. Our bodies move due to electrical impulses.  So we know that our thoughts have specific neural/electrical responses as well and that people respond differently to the same stimuli.  Now, being authentic looks differently on everyone—it takes different things for people to feel authentic and we all have unique expressions.  But what is the same is the feeling, the frequency emitted when we are authentic.  A group of authentically aligned people can learn to harmonize in the most beautiful ways.  Each may have different rhythms, but they all work together.  Be honest about who we are and align with ourselves and watch life begin to shift.    

Today I am grateful for beginnings.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started in life.  How many times I’ve had a burning desire, almost explosive, jumping out of my skin wanting to do something, or for something specific to happen.  How many times I thought I had “found my time” and was getting “what was owed” to me.  The mark of trauma is martyring ourselves and protecting ourselves from what we really want by not even trying because we think we don’t deserve it.  Every time I tried and failed, every time something didn’t happen, I was crushed.  But something in me kept going.  The cycle repeated because I reacted the same way to the same situation—in order for that to shift, I needed to change the reaction.  When we begin again, we can’t carry what happened with us.  We need fresh eyes and new ideas.  We need new mindsets.  Beginnings aren’t necessarily easy, but they are opportunities nonetheless.  When the right time comes to launch, do it.

Today I am grateful for love and support. I learned early in my life that I needed to do things for myself.  Not that my family didn’t take care of me—they certainly did, all of my needs were met and I was even fortunate enough to have plenty of extra resources and entertainment.  But I never thought I could do more than that as far as having dreams of my own and going after them—I never settled on what I wanted because I didn’t think I could do it.  I kind of took what came my way, being grateful for that instead of following the hunger for something bigger, something of my own.  I never thought I’d be able to achieve anything more or that I needed to prove myself to do it.  I isolated myself thinking that I was never worth asking for that kind of help, like my dreams weren’t worthy of assistance.  As I’m working through some massive changes, these new beginnings, I’m seeing how vital it is to have people around us that support us.  Life requires support and amazing things can happen with the right support.  There are times we think we have the right people only to find out they are energy drains or just using us for their benefit.  The difference when we find genuine support is astronomical.  That type of support can move mountains. It’s an incredibly freeing experience and it’s nice to take away the fear around going after our own dreams.

Today I am grateful for education.  I am learning so much every day and I spent a lot of my life thinking I knew it all because I took my education so seriously—I’m talking book education.  While I still highly value what I know, I now know that I have an infinite amount more to learn.  There are skills that aren’t taught in books and there are skills more valuable than making decisions about people based on what we see on paper.  Learning the skills we need to fulfill our purpose is an incredibly life opening experience because we see things in a new light and an entirely new way of being opens up to us.  There is nothing like that magnetic feeling of what is meant for us coming our way once we align with that purpose—and having the skills to keep ourselves going in that direction accompanied by the support of people who help us get there (or encourage us) is invaluable.  It is literally the doorway to a new life.  This world has infinite possibilities, things that can never be captured in words.  I had to learn that much of life was a feeling, not a regurgitation of what happened.  Once we get in that flow, a whole new world of learning opens to us. 

Today I am grateful for joy, community, purpose, and fun.  Life changes when we let life change, when we align with what we are meant to do and we stop resisting the calling of what is natural to us.  Life is far simpler than we make it—I will be talking about that later this week.  We overcomplicate our experience with projections and fears and rejecting what is ours and trying to take what isn’t—comparison and jealousy.  But when we let that go and we find what calls to us and we learn to find our purpose, we can relax.  The more we let go and we follow joy and fun, the easier that unfolds for us.  Joy and fun are what guide us toward the calling.  They aren’t meant to be fleeting emotions we feel, they bring us to our community.  It can be hard to let go of control, especially if we have been hyper independent—but the support we get from others can be invaluable, especially those who genuinely have our best interests at heart.

Today I am grateful for choices and actions.  All this time I thought I was making progress toward a goal, specifically a goal of independence, freedom, and sharing.  What I was doing was dipping my toes in, repeating patterns, running in fear the second things got close to something I didn’t know.  There is a massive difference when we get serious, let go of the fear, and take the action that moves us forward.  When we decide to take it seriously and go for it.  There is genuine freedom in that and we learn the simplicity of what we need to do—we simply need to decide on what it is, decide to do it, and then act on it.  There isn’t anything holding us back except for our own inaction.  The things we say we want won’t come to us until we align with them. I am grateful for the choice to choose my path.  I am grateful to be supported, to see the truth in those around me, to know who is for me, to know what I am for, and to know that I can do it.  There is a massive shift when we find the confidence in ourselves to do what we say we are going to do.  The sense of accomplishment with each step, the joy of doing what we love, the thrill of seeing it come together—that is pure magic.  That is the real alchemy of life—taking the vision and making it a reality.  There aren’t enough adjectives to explain that feeling, and I am grateful for every one of them—and I wish that feeling for everyone.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“People are anxious to improve their circumstances, but unwilling to improve self,” James Allen.  When it comes to choosing things that heal us over kill us, this is an important reminder.  So often we fixate on the results and not on the steps that get us there that we either get overwhelmed or we haven’t learned to take responsibility for our actions.  We also tend to operate under the “when” theory: when x happens then I’ll be happy.  In the states especially, we are conditioned to live in overwhelm and busyness which are merely activities that keep us moving but not necessarily moving forward.  We make the mistake of assuming that movement means progress but we don’t take the time to validate the direction we’re going in.  We also have a little bit of an issue with entitlement thinking that someone is at fault or someone will come and save us.  We have far more power over our lives than we are taught to believe, and with focus and changing our activities, the outcome changes. 

I spoke the other week about seeing it when we believe it and I realize how little we are trained to believe in ourselves.  Belief in ourselves doesn’t serve the system which creates issues for the top few so it’s dangerous to allow groups of us to be empowered.  I bring this up only because I know how difficult it can be to shift the mind toward worthiness, belief in self, and discipline.  It isn’t entirely our faults that we are unwilling to do the work on ourselves with the distraction, lack of discipline, the indoctrination of unhealthy habits, fear mongering, the things society praises, etc.  In spite of all that, we are still responsible for the results of our lives and until we can accept that, very little will change.  Yes it’s easy to dream of something else, yes it’s easy to hope that someone will give it to us, yes it’s scary to start taking control of ourselves—but that is the only way to achieve what we hope for.  We need to accept that where we are is a direct result of our choices and actions to that point.  There is zero judgement in that statement—if we’re happy where we are, that’s really what matters.  But for those that aren’t, playing victim will not change the circumstances, it will only create more issues.

The whole point of this is that shifting belief, and more importantly shifting focus, is necessary for anything to change in our circumstances.  Wishing for something without action brings us no closer to the desired result.  Taking responsibility isn’t about assigning blame or feeling guilty for any of what has passed in our lives, it’s about making peace with it, taking the lesson from it and moving forward.  Changing circumstances is about aligning with what makes sense and what gives us purpose and that means evaluating our beliefs, behaviors, and actions.  We all want better but sometimes what we think is better isn’t actually what we need.  If we don’t resolve the discrepancy between what we want and our behavior, then we will never get what we want.  It all starts with working on the self and becoming what we say we want.  The circumstances get better when we get better and we get better when we are most authentic.  We don’t need to judge or berate ourselves, we just need the strength to be honest, the courage to start, the fortitude to maintain belief, and the discipline to keep going.  Improving self starts with improving the mind and once we do that, that’s when circumstances improve.  Just start.     

Do things that heal you, not kill you.  Someone on my team was talking about this the other day and I know it seems pretty basic or common sense, but when you really think about it, we rarely adhere to this.  We do harmful things every day that we consider socially acceptable.  People smoke, they drink alcohol, they abuse drugs/pharmaceuticals, they overeat, they eat crap we call food, they don’t move their bodies, they argue a point instead of live it, they separate/isolate and stay stuck in their heads with no connection to self or source, they binge watch TV, they don’t align with what they know they want to do, they think negative thoughts, they stay in toxic situations, they live without believing in themselves, they never take the first step….the list goes on and on.  Two things: 1. I don’t profess to be perfect and I have been and still am doing some of these things and 2. I’m not judging anyone dealing with issues pertaining to any of this—we are human and have a lot of indoctrination to undo.

What really got me thinking about these things that kill is how we consider so much of it acceptable or normal while we look at things that heal us as abnormal, uncomfortable, or out there.  The bottom line is people cope with life in various ways and what has become acceptable, while evolved over time, hasn’t strayed far from dangerous in a long time.  I think it’s because there has been sort of an imagined elitism or separation between people who take care of themselves and those who don’t—I’m guilty of believing that.  And there are cases where it isn’t imagined; I used to go to gyms to work out (I joined several different ones) and it was a nightmare going to some of them.  What was supposed to be a safe space to find health was a popularity contest.  The truth is, like all of life, it’s just a difference in mind set.  We have a finite amount of time here and we are able to choose how we spend it, but we are rarely taught to look at the quality of what we do.

There comes a point in everyone’s lives where we understand that we are responsible for where we are and where we are going.  When we have goals, especially purposeful goals, we need to evaluate our time differently.  Most people are uncomfortable to look at what they do and see how they get in their own way.  They struggle or are afraid to see that most of the time they are the ones blocking themselves.  I think it’s because whenever we start looking at where we are, we somehow start to feel guilty and look for ways to assign blame instead of taking it for what it is and simply learning to pivot.  Taking ownership of our decisions and evaluating the results of our actions means asking ourselves how we can better align with where we are going and what actions will get us where we want to go.  Healing is a broad topic and it can mean a lot of things to each of us.  Getting honest about what hurts us and what we are choosing to tolerate is the first step.  Look at our lives with love and grace and start loving ourselves first and that changes how we look at life—we do more of what serves us to serve others and that in itself is healing.       

“Get out of where the stress exists,” Brett Portelli.  I needed this reminder.  For years, nearly two decades of my life, I settled somewhere because I thought it was the safe path.  I thought it was the responsible thing to do.  I blatantly saw people try to undermine and sabotage me and I sought a position of power so I would be able to honor my voice and even exert some control at some point.      None of that worked and I realized none of that was meant for me.  There are certain environments that, for whatever reason, thrive in stress.  They thrive in pain and they seek to bring others down.  They are the energy vampires.  It’s possible to attain energy in these places but it isn’t healthy and it will always leave us wanting more.  All our lives we are inundated with a path to take and the majority follow it even if they don’t want to.  We can decide that we want to live where we create energy, not drain it from others.

We have the power to make the choice to leave the environments that don’t support our growth.  We have the power to decide what we want to do with our time and energy and how we want to create that energy.  It isn’t limited.  We just thrive in different ways from different things.  The key is to know what works for us.  Thinking we are being noble or responsible by staying in an environment that hurts us mentally, physically, or just barely helps us get by is nothing but a drain.  Someone else is thriving off of our energy and work.  Here’s the secret: we are allowed to cut ties and walk away.  It may be scary as anything unfamiliar is at first.  But that decision can be the best decision of our lives.  The day we take ownership of what we want and set the boundary for what we will and will not tolerate shifts the sail toward a bigger destiny than we thought.  Even if we can’t see the big picture, taking that first step is a huge choice. 

I also want to send this reminder that what we are told is the safe choice creates safety in a box.  It can be the most dangerous choice we make because it suffocates us while telling us it’s trying to keep us safe and protected.  It’s more dangerous when we feel the discrepancy between our thoughts/desires and our actions.  When we feel the difference between what we are capable of and what we actually spend our time doing.  It will eventually drive us mad unless we spend so much time in distraction that we forget what we ever wanted in the first place.  Don’t ever give up our desires, don’t ever stop listening to the inner voice telling us what we are capable of.  Make choices that support those dreams, those thoughts, and believe that anything is possible. It can be done.  Make the first move and look at then environment around us—if it helps us, great. If it hinders us, it’s time to consider changing it.  And if we can’t change it then we need to consider removing ourselves from it.  No one will fix it but us—we can and we are meant to.  Remove the stress or remove ourselves from it.  Move forward.