{"id":3098,"date":"2019-11-19T10:04:12","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T15:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soul-repairs.com\/blog\/?p=3098"},"modified":"2019-11-09T23:59:29","modified_gmt":"2019-11-10T04:59:29","slug":"all-the-problems-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/19\/all-the-problems-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"All the Problems of the World&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we observe the drama and problems of the world, and also our <em>own<\/em> drama and problems, we&#8217;ve come to the conclusion that most of people&#8217;s problems come down to&#8230;pretty simple solutions.<\/p>\n<p>All the problems of the world can generally be solved by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>have boundaries<\/li>\n<li>you can only control you<\/li>\n<li>don&#8217;t be afraid<\/li>\n<li>trust God and each other &#8211; but mostly, and\u00a0<em>first<\/em>, God<\/li>\n<li>enjoy what you have in your life<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So&#8230;yeah. These are pretty simple. They&#8217;re also <em>insanely\u00a0hard to do.<\/em> But they seem to be helpful, so we&#8217;ll explain what we mean.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>Boundaries<\/h2>\n<p>We&#8217;ve talked about this book <a href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/tag\/boundaries\/\">before<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B06XFKNB2Y\/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1\">You should read it<\/a> if you haven&#8217;t.\u00a0 TL;DR: <strong>you<\/strong> are responsible for <strong>you<\/strong>. You are responsible for your feelings, your emotions, your reactions, your physical self, and your choices. You are not responsible for other peoples, because\u00a0<strong>they<\/strong> are responsible for\u00a0<strong>them<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Wait. We&#8217;ll say it again:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You are <strong><em>not responsible for other people<\/em><\/strong><strong>.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This applies even if they\u00a0<em>tell<\/em> you that you are responsible for them, even if they say that their feelings\/reactions\/etc are <em>your<\/em> fault.<\/p>\n<h2>You Can Only Control You<\/h2>\n<p>This is an expansion of boundaries: stop hyperfocusing on what other people are doing, and look at what you\u00a0<em>can<\/em> control (see above, re: boundaries&#8230;). Stop trying to <a href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/tag\/control\/\">control<\/a> other people in order to feel safe, and stop allowing other people to control\u00a0<em>you<\/em> because <em>they<\/em> want to feel safe.<\/p>\n<h2>Don&#8217;t Be Afraid<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/tag\/fear\/\">Fear<\/a> and panic make you <em>completely crazypants<\/em>. It&#8217;s an incredibly hard cycle to get out of, because fear also makes us interpret things in the most scary possible way. There&#8217;s only one way we&#8217;ve figured out to get out of it aside from squishing your feels <em>(don&#8217;t do this),\u00a0<\/em>and that is&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Fear makes you crazypants.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Trust God and Each Other &#8211; but Mostly, and\u00a0<em>First<\/em>, God<\/h2>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"emoji alignnone wp-image-2526 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/notes-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/> And I will fear no evil,<br \/>\nfor my God is with me.<br \/>\nAnd if my God is with me,<br \/>\nwhom then shall I fear?<br \/>\n<strong>Whom then shall I fear?<\/strong> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"emoji alignnone wp-image-2526 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/notes-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Matt-redman-you-never-let-go-lyrics\">You Never Let Go<\/a>, Matt Redman<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>God has got this. He&#8217;s proven that to both of us, time and time again. His plans are better than ours, and any time we try to run our own plans, we end up <em>kinda&#8217; miserable<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>And&#8230;if God has got this, and if he&#8217;s working for our good, and he&#8217;ll figure it out with us, and protect us, and guide us, then&#8230;why be afraid? What is there to be afraid\u00a0<em>of<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>And if you&#8217;re lucky enough to have a couple of ride or dies who you can\u00a0<em>also<\/em> trust, and who know they are fallible and that they can&#8217;t carry your soul, and who know that shoving you at God when you forget to trust him is the very best plan, you <em>really<\/em> don&#8217;t have anything to be afraid of.<\/p>\n<p>Just&#8230;<a href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/07\/trust-what-is\/\">trust<\/a>&#8230;and <em>let go.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Use Cases<\/h2>\n<h3>Trump vs not Trump<\/h3>\n<p>A lot of people freak out about supporting President Trump or not supporting him. Some say he has a holy right to rule <em>(lolz)<\/em>, some others say he is a foreign agent bent on nuclear war and the destruction of our country and liberties <em>(also lolz)<\/em>. Some just think he&#8217;s a dumpster fire and try to close their eyes and hope he doesn&#8217;t do too much damage while he&#8217;s in charge of&#8230;something?<\/p>\n<p>Mostly, people use their opinions about him as an excuse to <strong>hate<\/strong> each other.<\/p>\n<p>But&#8230;this is stupid. He&#8217;s just <em>one<\/em> guy. The economy is better, foreign relations are&#8230;well, different at least, and our country is still polarized. All that a person can do is live their lives, vote when it&#8217;s time, and&#8230; <em>trust that God will handle it<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3>Control and <a href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/tag\/exile\/\">Exile<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>We&#8217;ve written about, and will write more about, this topic &#8211; but the summary is, people think that if someone near them is doing behavior X, it will cause them pain. They think that if someone near them is misbehaving according to God, then <strong>they<\/strong> will feel pain from God as a result.<\/p>\n<p>This is an old, <em>old<\/em> cultural scar. Homophobia, racism, legalism, basically all kinds of hatred are examples of this. It&#8217;s a lie that people believe and respond to: &#8220;I need to control you, or something bad will happen to me. I need you to be what I think God wants, or <em><a href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/disorganized-religion\/\">we won&#8217;t be safe<\/a>.<\/em>&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Obsession with One Fear for Safety<\/h3>\n<p>We occasionally run into people who think that they can white-knuckle their way to success: &#8220;if I am afraid enough about this <strong>one thing<\/strong>, and if I focus on it hard enough, my life will be safe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a broken variation of trying to control what they can, and solve their worst pain &#8211; which is in general a really good idea. But rather than <em>actually<\/em> solve that pain, they turn their worst pain into an <a href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/21\/idols-and-alone-and-rest-for-your-soul\/\">idol<\/a> that defines who they are.<\/p>\n<p>Fear does not guarantee safety. It is not control. Or said another way, fearing something enough <em>won&#8217;t make it go away <\/em>and obsession with one scary thing doesn&#8217;t resolve it.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Fear does not guarantee safety.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Examples of this include white supremacists, IT security professionals in broken organizations, and anyone else who appears to allow fear to dictate all of their choices.<\/p>\n<h2>Old Sayings<\/h2>\n<p>There&#8217;s an old saying: &#8220;if everything is important, then <em>nothing<\/em> is important.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve also heard, &#8220;beatings will continue until morale improves.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/disorganized-religion\/\">church edition<\/a> goes like this: &#8220;we want you to be shiny God people, and we will legalize and control you and demand that you <a href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/06\/sacrifice-done-well\/\">sacrifice badly<\/a> until you <em>start shining<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>People seem to universally think that the way to happiness, to <em>peace<\/em>, is to control other people. It&#8217;s <strong><em>not<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>A Better Plan &#8211; Enjoy What You Have in Your Life<\/h2>\n<p><strong>You<\/strong>, and your decision about what anchors your soul, is more important to your happiness that any other person or thing. So&#8230;you don&#8217;t <em>have<\/em> to be miserable. You don&#8217;t <em>have<\/em> to obsess about what anyone else is doing or saying or thinking. You can instead choose to just&#8230;enjoy your life.<\/p>\n<p>You can instead choose to control only what you can control, enjoy the good things that happen to you, and walk with God.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we observe the drama and problems of the world, and also our own drama and problems, we&#8217;ve come to the conclusion that most of people&#8217;s problems come down to&#8230;pretty simple solutions. All the problems of the world can generally be solved by: have boundaries you can only control you don&#8217;t be afraid trust God &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/19\/all-the-problems-of-the-world\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,40],"tags":[137,73,167,114,157,57,166,142,61,58],"wf_post_folders":[],"coauthors":[26,11],"class_list":["post-3098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-people","tag-boundaries","tag-control","tag-exile","tag-fear","tag-idols","tag-only-one-safe","tag-ride-or-dies","tag-shiny-people","tag-song-lyrics-as-wisdom","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3098"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3098"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=3098"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soul-repairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}