There has never been a society like the one we live in today: The American lower-middle class actually has easy access to more material goods than Cornelius Vanderbilt could have imagined.
We don’t stop that often to appreciate it. We really should take some time once in a while and admit, what a kickass system! It’s broken, it’s fouled up, we’re doing a lot to destroy it, but geez, even in this bruised and battered shape it’s pretty amazing.
Do you ever doubt how fortunate we are to be living here, in this country, now? Do you get depressed about what’s going on now in Washington? Does it all just knock you down once in a while and make you wonder where we’re going? Well, that’s normal—we all go through it. What is important is getting back up. In early 2018 I had in my studio Nick Vujicic, who was born with no arms and no legs. When he was ten years old, he asked his father to put five or six inches of water in the bathtub so he could sit in it. His real intent was to slide down under the water and stay there. He was deeply depressed, sure he had no future. He thought death was better than the miserable life he was doomed to lead. He tried to do it, but then he thought about his parents, who would have been devastated.
When I met him several years ago for the first time, he had just started a relationship with the woman who would become his wife. He told me then that he’d grown up thinking no woman could ever love him and he would never be able to hug his kids. Today they have kids and travel around the world as he gives motivational speeches to literally hundreds of thousands of people.
He told me he discovered an amazing thing: “My kids hug me.”
Let me tell you about a Chinese preacher I know who has dedicated his life to bringing Christians out of China. Several years ago at his house at Christmastime, some of the people he had helped escape were decorating; they were hanging lights, putting ornaments on the tree, setting up the crèche. Suddenly he noticed the woman whose job it was to untangle the knotted strands of lights; there she sat with a jumble of lights on her lap, weeping. When asked what was wrong, she explained, “I made these lights.” Thinking he had misunderstood, he asked her again. “This was my job . . . in prison.” She was now lost in a memory from the other side of earth. “I made these lights,” she repeated quietly, almost to herself. She had been put in prison for practicing her faith, spending years making lights for us to celebrate something she could not. It was an amazing coincidence but served, once again, to remind me that I won the lottery by being born in America.
The Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, guarded the harbor to the island with a sword. It was a warning: Be careful if you come into this port, as we have the strength to crush you. Conversely, we have a woman holding a torch to light the way, saying, Welcome, come with your dream and let’s build a better place for those who will come tomorrow. Even if that idea is challenged and lost or destroyed by us, it will inspire people far and wide—people who cannot live the promise in their land but keep that torch alive in them. I have a limited amount of knowledge about my own heritage. My dad’s side of the family came from Germany in the 1870s. My mother’s side is Danish and German. Recently, I discovered old papers from my ancestors on my father’s side. They told the story of my great-great-grandfather and his brother, who had fought for the Union in the Civil War. Both of them were quickly captured and ended up in the notorious Confederate prison at Andersonville. One brother died, and the other never fully recovered and lived the rest of his life in pain.
I have a ranch in the mountains, and at the entrance is a sign reading “Beck and Sons: Committed to Integrity and Courage for Four Generations.” I had it made to remind my children that we might never accomplish anything ourselves, but we can’t ever forget the sacrifices our ancestors made to come here and give us the opportunities we enjoy.
Millions of people have died to free slaves and to cut the chains of those held under the boot of Nazi and Communist butchers, and yet we fight, hiding behind an avatar, with someone we will never meet about the use of the c-word by a B-list celebrity.
We cannot allow that to be our contribution and legacy.
So let’s agree that even with all of the issues we’re dealing with on an almost daily basis, we have a tremendous amount to be grateful for, and it’s well worth fighting to protect it.
A second point on which all the various programs agree is the need for civility. I have always felt strongly that character matters. My parents taught me that. Doing the right thing matters, even if you don’t always succeed. We lived in the town of Mount Vernon, Washington, in the early 1970s. Like every other small town in America, Mount Vernon was being threatened by large malls, which drew shoppers away from the local shops downtown. My parents tried to fight that by leading a campaign to re-create a more traditional downtown, replete with brick streets and faux gaslights. It created a lot of tension in our town, and, frankly, I didn’t understand their reasoning. What was wrong with a big Sears coming to town? They were trying to save the town, while others thought they were trying to stop progress. There was a lot of yelling back and forth, a lot of angry people who back then didn’t have social media on which to express their anger. So nothing happened, and our town died.
It took me a long time to understand and appreciate what my parents were doing. They saw a coming problem and tried to solve it, even when it would have been much easier and considerably quieter for them to sit down rather than stand up. That’s one definition of character. My father, even with his shortcomings, was a man of character. He taught me the importance of integrity and honesty. Lying was about the worst thing a man could do. And he taught me that a man can change. My father is the person who convinced me, even before I started AA, that I could change. I probably never realized how much I was the product of his values. Even when my own character was shaky, when I was lying to myself as well as to other people about the extent of my drinking, I understood on some level that what I was doing was wrong—wrong for me, and wrong for the people who loved me and depended on me.
I had a similar realization pretty much at the height of my fame. I could have kept going as a leader of the Tea Party movement; that would have been the easy thing to do. I could have continued enjoying the incredible support I was receiving, even if inside I was starting to feel hollow. But I didn’t. Character matters.
Character is the true expression of who we are. It is, I suppose, our best self. Behavioral-change programs are not set up to try to change your character but rather to reveal the best possible you. Most of them believe we have built up our defenses to protect our emotional vulnerabilities—the strike-first syndrome—which goes a long way toward hiding the person we want to be. So, successful addiction-breaking strategies are aimed at getting through those defense mechanisms, whether by long-term therapy or replacing them with a much healthier kind of behavior pattern. You have to fill that gap with something.
Like the military, most of these programs will break you down and then rebuild you, eliminating destructive behavior and substituting different goals. When letting go of my outrage, I kept one thought in mind: Remember who we are; remember, remember who we are.
Perhaps instead I should have been thinking, Remember who you want to be. Reach for your better angels. As I’m writing this, on my walls are pictures of George Washington, Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and Billy Graham. In other places I have photographs of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi. A man I greatly respected once told me that I should always have a picture on my desk or phone of someone I truly admire. There’s an old Sufi saying, he explained, that what you gaze upon, you become. That works for me. Who is it that you really respect? Whose path do you want to follow? I guess when I was rubbing my thumb on Washington’s compass that’s really what I was reaching for.
For much of my life, it hasn’t been easy being me. I’m a lot of contradictions, so it isn’t surprising that at times my words have rolled out before I’ve thought them through. I’ve said things that
I wish I hadn’t said; I’ve boxed myself into complicated positions. But as hard as it has been being me, just imagine how much more difficult it is being my kids. Imagine bearing the brunt of the controversy your father has spewed up without having any choice in the matter. To a very small degree, that’s what I experienced way back when in Mount Vernon. Obviously, my kids have had some material advantages because of my notoriety, but for them it has come at a cost. They have been with me several times when other people recognized me and just lost it, unable to control their hatred for me. Both of my kids have asked, at different times, why some people love me and others hate me. My answer was, “Because they don’t really know me. I don’t really deserve either. I don’t deserve their adoration, and I don’t deserve their hatred. But if anyone is correct, it’s probably those who are angry at me, because I just didn’t see their point.”
All of this turmoil really affected my son. When he was about eight years old he was studying martial arts and was finally ready to earn his first belt. But when he found out there was going to be a crowd there, he decided he couldn’t do it. “Are you mad?” he asked me.
“I’m not,” I said, “but we’ve got to find a way to conquer that. You can’t let fear rule your life.” I took him into my office and asked him to look around. I have some wonderful artifacts there, including items owned by Rosa Parks and Hugh Stafford, the heroic commander of the Hanoi Hilton prison camp, and even a passport issued by Raoul Wallenberg. “What do you think all of the people represented in this room have in common?”
We talked about it for a while, and then he guessed, “They’re all heroes?”
“Well, yes,” I said, “most of them were. But why do you think I have all this?”
He took a guess. “Because they’re like you? They weren’t afraid?”
That response set me back a few breaths. Finally I told him, “The exact opposite. I’m guessing they were all terrified when they took those steps, but they did it anyway. I don’t think heroes aren’t afraid. That’s mostly in the comic books. Heroes are the ones who say This may hurt, but it’s going to hurt a lot more not to do it.”
The next weekend he went back and earned his first belt.
Not being there for my kids in the present was the reason I sought help at AA. Stealing the future from all of our kids is the reason I abandoned my outrage. An important aspect of the AA program is having another person to rely on, a so-called sponsor ready to come to your aid if you slip. For a lot of people, their sponsor becomes a role model, a reminder of why they’re going through all this, and a constant reminder that they are not alone in this. Other people have been through what you are going through and managed to make it work. When things get tough, your sponsor is the person to rely on. In this situation, we probably don’t need another specific person. All you have to do is look at your kids, then take a step back and look at all of America’s kids. That’s why we have to do this.
A decade ago I wrote, “One day we will face our children and grandchildren as they ask us what we found more important and valuable than freedom. They will ask if our big, unaffordable homes, ‘free’ universal health care, and ‘buy it now’ lifestyle were worth enslaving them for.
“How will you answer?”
That same question may well be more relevant today than it was when I first wrote those words. But since then, we can add to that list of things we traded our kids’ future for the right to express our outrage at people who refuse to embrace our position on issues. When our kids ask why America has lost its standing in the world, we can respond, “Because people disagreed with me on abortion, and I had to fight with them about it.” Or health care. Or the death penalty. Or the Second Amendment. Or any of the other issues we battle daily over and will never completely resolve.
So, if you need a sponsor, if you want to calm down but just can’t do it because someone you don’t know just said you were dumb and you absolutely have to respond, just pause and look at your kids, at our kids, and at least ask yourself if that brief surge of emotion you’re going to feel is really worth it.
It really is worse than ever. Pew Research reported in 2017 that “the divisions between Republicans and Democrats on fundamental political values—on government, race, immigration, national security, environmental protection, and other areas—reached record levels during Barack Obama’s presidency. In Donald Trump’s first year as president, these gaps have grown even larger. And the magnitude of these differences dwarfs other divisions in society, along such lines as gender, race and ethnicity, religious observance, or education.”
Fortunately, I’m not the only person who recognizes the damage we’re doing—and that there is still time to act. In his 2017 lecture “The Age of Outrage,” published by National Review, NYU’s Jonathan Haidt offers some hope. “If you want hope,” he said, “you need only put this quotation up on your bathroom mirror: ‘We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days . . .’ That was written by British historian Thomas Babington Macaulay—in 1830! . . .
“Because as things get worse on campus, more people are beginning to stand up, and more people are searching for solutions.”
I also get letters from people who support my position; they understand that while my stand on issues has remained consistent, my approach has changed, and most of the time they appreciate it. Most—not all. But like having an AA sponsor as a reminder that you are not alone, I am beginning to see evidence that other people are becoming as alarmed and outraged as I am at the out-of-control outrage.
A friend sent me a recent Facebook post by the well-respected New York City journalist Lynne White, who posted on her Facebook page: “My heart is beating so fast now I feel like it will explode.” She continued, “When we start to personally attack each other because of our views or denigrate a whole country or perhaps a religion, we have to put ourselves in check. I am guilty of passionate feelings on all things politics, but when we hurt each other, we’re doing what our enemies want.” Exactly! Just ask Putin. She went on, “You can hate Israel, but not here. You can hate America, but not here! You can hate Muslims or Catholics or blacks or whites or gays or Jews, but not here. . . . When we cross a line to the hate zone, I have to say enough. Love, not hate, conquers all!”
That started a good—and reasonable—debate. A lot of people responded to that post, mainly in agreement, although clearly with some difficulty at not being able to get that final dig in. One person wrote: “Restraint is critically essential so that constructive conversations occur. If you resort to name-calling and despairing remarks toward another, the conversation stops and you are not better than what you are fighting against. . . .”
To which Lynne White responded, echoing precisely what I have been trying to say here: “We have to be aware there are consequences to the words we speak whether we see or feel them here or not. People are affected in ways we may not understand.” Must say, I agree! She concluded, “Maybe we should look within to curtail the rhetoric when it crosses a critical line. Just saying, maybe we should think before we react!”
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T. H. I. N. K.
Finally someone suggested a mnemonic that might be helpful for all of us: Before I say anything or respond—let me THINK. T, is it truthful; H, is it helpful; I, is it inspiring; N, is it necessary; K, is it kind. Is what I am about to say all of these things? If not, which one(s)? When you honestly THINK it through, say it and see if it doesn’t change the conversation.
That general agreement that we have a problem and we have to deal with it now is spreading. Exactly how are you going to accomplish that? Just as there are programs besides AA that will help you beat your addiction, there are people other than myself who are offering suggestions on how to calm down the red-hot rhetoric. The most common suggestion also is the most difficult: Stay off or cut down your use of social media.
Nope, that ain’t gonna
happen. Social media is much too deeply embedded in our lives. To varying degrees, we all are dependent on it. It is our companion, our assistant and scheduler, a significant provider of entertainment, a primary source of news and information, an emergency notice and response system, and our main communications tool. So, no one is giving it up, and any program that makes that suggestion is doomed to fail.
Another friend of mine, aware of my concern, sent me a copy of his daily horoscope from a New York newspaper confirming that others are becoming aware of this problem and are looking for solutions: For Aries, it began, “The moon in your sign for the next few days will provide one awakening after another; though, to receive full benefits, you might try taking a day off from the Internet. If that is not possible, try three hours; and if that is not possible, have a long talk with yourself about why that is.”
After you’ve tried to curb your use of social media, which exactly no one is going to be able to do, many experts suggest finding ways to divert your attention. Get involved, they urge; demonstrate your political commitment with activism. That makes sense; essentially, it urges people to do what Anita suggested to Maria in West Side Story, “Stick to your own kind.” Rather than spending or perhaps wasting your time fighting with people who disagree with you, join with those people who share your opinions and work together as a group to bring them to fruition. This certainly was my experience at the beginning of the Tea Party movement. I embraced it very quickly when it started, so much so that members of that group considered me the “most highly regarded” commentator. As this idea became a reality, it occupied a considerable amount of my time and efforts; previously I had spent a lot of energy attacking Democrats. I was furious at them because of what I perceived they were doing to my country. But I had to cut way back on that criticism to help build the Tea Party. So I understand the suggestion that negative energy can be turned positive by working for what you believe in rather than against what the other side believes.