Who needs all this misery and pain? Having just spent a month with covid, I certainly don’t. But I know rolling over and going back to sleep, while it did help me get over the virus, is not the answer to getting through the horror the news brings every day.

What I have found works for me is limiting my news diet and looking at the remarkable world around. This morning a light falling snow is just magical.

Today’s mantra is: enjoy the smell of the coffee (while thanking those who picked the beans); taste breakfast as fully as possible without looking at a screen at the same time; think of family, especially the good parts because for me they far outnumber those that are less pleasant; consider the sage advice of my friend Willem Lange to do something new every day; take a walk with a friend; talk with others rather than just stay in my head talking to myself; see the world as the immense miraculous place it is, even if it also includes much that is hard to look at; and, of course, breathe deeply and then again.

In the midst of all that, I’ll find one thing I can do that will make a difference however large or small for someone in need. There are so many of us who are and, honestly, I have so much.

Without a guarantee I’ll be here, ya know, tomorrow and look forward to what it brings because there is much more than the same old front page with a different headline. Thank you for sharing this post, and your self, with others. We’ll get through this together!

26 Jan This entry was published on January 26, 2025 at 11:36 am. It’s filed under John Snell, John Snell Photographer, Patterns, Photograph, Winter, www.johnsnell.photography and tagged art, peace, Photography, poetry, politics, snow, Trump, writing. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.