When the thought of having no job fills me with anxiety and frustration, I dive into my daily routine. It’s the only thing I know to do and have done for almost as long as I’ve been alive. It gives me a sense of purpose and meaning. When people ask me what the meaning of life is, the only answer I give them is what suits me: it’s communicating, mostly in the form of radio. I do it because it’s in me. It’s who I am, what I do in my sleep. It’s my blessing and my curse. Some would say it’s the shovel that digs my grave. The only catch is that it repeats everyday, but it results differently because I create new things, working with sounds, express new ideas in the form of entertainment while combining thoughts that make people think, or at least chuckle at what I say in front of the microphone or display on a screen.
I haven’t been on terrestrial radio for my full 18-year career. Similar to what I have been doing for the past seven months, there was a time when I was off AM/FM radio for about two and a half years. I had a desk job doing research and making videos for a drug testing company. At that time, if my wife wasn’t working at the same place, I would have been happy to open a vein and let my life pour out for the eight hours that I was there each day. On the bright side, outside of my loving family, I had TBJS Radio Network waiting for me when I got home. Even while I was at the soul-draining desk job, the wheels in my head were turning in overdrive and I couldn’t write down the ideas in detail fast enough. It’s like I was being pulled to into deeper thinking about what needed to be done, but I haven’t been able to get it all done yet. Still have ideas that have yet to be made physical (and digital in some cases). We all have a greater calling that keeps us going or pulls us toward a direction if it’s meant to be. A divine sign, if you will. How do we know if it’s meant to be, you ask? I can’t answer that because it’s different for each of us.
What I do know is that if the routine is hard to break, you have to ask yourself: is it addiction or is it a sign? According to The American Psychiatric Association, “Addiction is a complex condition, a brain disease that is manifested by compulsive substance use despite harmful consequence” (https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/addiction/what-is-addiction). Granted, when most people hear the word “addiction”, they immediately think of drug or alcohol abuse. Truth is, that is not always the case. Addictions, like people, come in all shapes and sizes. They come in different forms, such as desires, feeling out for cracks in our defenses, weak spots between our strong fronts, creeping in our most vulnerable moments when we are the most defenseless, unrealizing when our very own thoughts are being invaded by self doubt or overwhelming anxiety at the thought of not being a good provider to your family…. Almost to the point of depression….
Let’s look at the possibility of a routine as being a divine sign. If you have a daily routine to just keep you busy, this may not necessarily apply to you, but if you feel the need to accomplish something each and every single day/night that you can’t shake the feeling you are wasting time when you just sit around, then you might be getting called to “prepare” for something. Preparing for what? Again, I can’t answer that for you because each of us are different. To put things into perspective, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America (PNAS) claim “Many social scientists have documented some evidence of temporal patterning in individuals’ everyday behavior. That different individuals tend to spend similar amounts of time doing certain things (e.g., paid work) is a dominant finding in the large body of research on time use or time allocation” ( https://www.pnas.org/content/115/24/6183 ).
Now you might be thinking this could be just a “habit” or “crutch” that our body does that keeps us doing what we do whenever all else fails. Well, not a bad idea, but what is a habit? Psychology Today states a habit as “a pattern of behavior” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fixing-families/201712/how-break-bad-habits). But these patterns are also usually wrapped in larger ones, resulting in routines that run our lives, right? Well let’s feed that rabbit and follow it down the hole for a moment with this question: what feeds the urge for a habit? In other words, what feeds the need for repetitive actions to be done in a period of time? Repetitiveness feeds Repetitiveness. It’s a pattern, a set of skills, a train of thought, that has been instilled into our way of life to be repeated at a certain time when the need is triggered.
The same methodology can be compared to life in the US Military. There was an old saying when I was doing Basic Training in the Army, “if it ain’t raining, we’re training.” Well, that may not always been true because there are still some things that you can be taught while stuck indoors: there’s hand-to-hand combat, battlefield medicine / techniques, policing and squaring away personal property, weapons maintenance, and reading the soldiers manual (or the religious reference of your choice). Not a whole lot different methodology than what the larger cities in the country are going through now. Those of us in the rural areas of the country don’t have to worry too much about the strict rules placed by the “authorities”. I say that word “authorities” loosely because I feel that some of them have extended their reach a bit more than what they are legally allowed to, but if someone says “hey look, you ain’t got the right to do that”, it escalates into getting arrested or shut down. And for what reason? It’s like you can get locked up for asking a simple question of on what authority.
Every day for the past almost three weeks there has been news stories about people peacefully protesting and getting arrested for a wide range of reason, including “not maintaining social distance”, “being in a group of more than 10 people”, “being in a public park”, and “being out past curfew” to name a few. Depending on what city you are in or which state you work in, people are feeling trapped by the multitude of rules or regulations that are being laid upon the land. It ain’t just the fact that some people are going to do bad things during this time, there are some really good people who are fighting back with peaceful means. Even when the town’s police department is saying that “peaceful protesting is non-essential” (https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/raleigh-pd-calls-protesting-non-essential-activity/19057352/), these people, like any other U.S. citizen, have a constitutional (some say God-given) right to peacefully express your concern or disapproval about something in the United States.
North Carolina is looking more like a powder keg with a very short fuse right now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPOxgMW1Hns). However, they aren’t alone as more and more towns across the United States have people who are demonstrating their constitutional rights to peacefully protest their disapproval of the various forms lockdowns that we see. It’s getting so much that other countries are taking notice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6C1cK5B1j4) when they aren’t fighting among themselves over the same issues (Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDLoqaET2Xg , Berlin, Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqgJFGn66pY, and in Hong Kong, China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9c347l4X3c ). One of the things that connects these people from all over the world is the simple “desire” to go back to work. Be it the need to pay the bills, to get out of the house, to resume the lifestyle they use to have, or to get back their dignity and self-worth. It really doesn’t matter why the people want to return to the normal life they are accustomed to. So let’s go back to the question, is it addiction or is it a sign?
I can’t help but feel that if all these people all over the world, who don’t know each other or have nothing else in common, are expressing the same frustration, there has to be a reason. I know this day and age with technology, it is easy to see what other people in another part of the globe are doing and that could be a case of “Monkey See, Monkey Do”, but I don’t feel this is that situation. It’s people’s nature to want to be free. Live as a free society, unbound by ruthless dictators nor shackled by double standards. It’s no secret that we’ve seen double standard situations play out before. Anyone remember the “#MeToo” movement or ANTIFA? Where are they at now? Where they only for political reasons?
It’s not a secret that some of the biggest protests are being done in states that have Governors who are of the Democratic party (Illinois, Michigan, & Washington). Now to be fair, I do not know how many people in these peaceful protests are doing it for political gain, but from what I can tell, it’s not politically motivated. However, I’m willing to bet that it’s not simply because these protests are going on in countries all over the world. So if you want to look like a clown and yell out it’s all politically motivated, that is on you. I’m just point out the obvious facts that these states have something going on in their leadership that their people don’t like. For example, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is being sued over constitutional rights being violated (https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/5-businesses-sue-gov-gretchen-whitmer-over-constitutional-rights-from-shutdown). She’s not alone either, as the Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is being sued for “exceeded his authority in issuing the executive order and closing nonessential businesses across the state” (https://news.wttw.com/2020/04/29/second-lawsuit-filed-against-governor-pritzker-stay-home-order) and Washington Governor Jay Inslee just announced his Stay-at-Home Order will last beyond May 4, but didn’t announce the new end date (https://seattle.eater.com/2020/4/29/21242044/jay-inslee-announces-stay-at-home-order-to-last-longer-than-may-4). And just remember folks, it’s all in the name of “Public Health and Safety”…. I don’t believe that for a moment. How do you think that is going to make people feel now that President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the coronavirus guidelines will be “fading out” at the end of this month because of work that governors are doing in their states ( https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/federal-social-distancing-guidelines-expire/65-08c8753a-de86-4e92-96fc-ea2db1310a4b )?
I am not saying these Governors are bad people who want to oppress the masses. I’m just saying they are underestimating their voters. There could be some political agenda, but I don’t like making things political. This may very well backfire on them in their next election, but only the people can decide that. Right now, most of the voters just want their lives back to normal, not the “New Normal”, but what they had before. Everytime I hear the someone say we need to adjust to the “new” normal, I want to smack them in the head until they realize that phrase means the cure will definitely be worse than the illness. You want the “New Normal”, I suggest moving to Wuhan, China or Chernobyl, Russia. Either way, it’s about the same level of adapting to survive in a new environment right now. Then again, what all this is actually a sign of something much bigger coming down the pipe? Would you want to know what is coming next? Would that feed your habit of curiosity?
