Complain Less, Do More - Phetasy News
Complain Less, Do More - Phetasy News
A Revolution In Health Care, Normal World - Ins-erection in the Senate Room!, The Glenn Beck Program - America's Too Fat For A Civil War, It's Impossible To Call Yourself Authentic & New Merch
Greetings from the Phetaverse!
Hello “Pham” and thank you for your patience. It’s been a dizzying week. Spectator deadline. Travel. So I apologize, the other things like the newsletter and writing prompts are running a bit behind—but I will get them up! I was in Dallas at The Blaze doing some media. It’s so cool to know I can run up there and do a bunch of shows and see my pals. The drive is easy breezy and it’s the exact amount of time as one episode of the Joe Rogan Experience. (I measure all travel distance in how many JRE podcasts I can listen to.) I don’t have any time to listen to anything in my everyday life, so a mini road trip was a great excuse.
Every quarter Joe sits down with Josh Dubin who is the Executive Director of the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice, a criminal justice reform advocate, and civil rights attorney. Josh usually brings along someone who was wrongly convicted—or in this instance—a man who was guilty, Sheldon Johnson. In Sheldon’s case, the judge threw the book at him. Sheldon is now a criminal justice reform advocate and works with at risk youth at the Queens Defenders in New York, but he was on track to die in prison.
It was an eye-opening episode and I recommend you check it out if you haven’t already. Joe truly is one of the great interviewers of our time because he’s an incredible listener. He lets people speak. Sheldon’s story moved me because he chose life. He chose personal responsibility. In the face of a fifty year sentence, Sheldon asked himself what kind of person he was going to be, even in prison. How would he use his time? It’s a beautiful story of redemption and it made me want to be a better person. Maybe find a literacy organization to donate some of my time to. Something. These guys are doing their best to change the system. They’re doing their best to be proactive instead of reactive. Asking questions like, how can we catch these guys before they get on the prison train instead of after they’re already in there? How can we truly rehabilitate them while there in? How can we prepare them for when they get out?
In our whiny culture of perpetual faux outrage and endless grievances, we need to hear more stories of generosity of spirit and forgiveness. Of resilience in the face of impossible odds. Stories of people doing instead of complaining. Stories of redemption. We have the resources and the human creativity available to us to solve some of these huge problems that plague us and hold us back. If only we could focus our collective energies on solution. It’s amazing what just this small band of men and women have been able to accomplish. Imagine millions of us.
Bridget returns to Normal World - Ins-erection in the Senate Room!
Thumbnail artwork by Lara Cullen.
Email laracullenstudio@gmail.com to inquire or contact her.
"What's the best thing that can happen?"
This is my new reframe. It replaces its antithesis (my standard operating system) and so far, it's working.
I'd write a prescription for the world...