Happy Birthday, SASTP Nation!
Anna with baby Crowley one year ago... when we launched SASTP
Born one year ago today, the brilliant idea to start “Stop and Smell the People” was completely and totally NOT mine. I’m just along for the ride. My wife suggested it as a way to stay involved with you all as I left my on-air TV job. She deserves all the credit for that.
I could spend this whole entry talking about circumstance. It’s been a weird year for that… Newborn son, out of work, sold house, left reporting behind, went on the road, moved to Virginia, joined management, exhale. Feels like 10 years, not one.
But I don’t want to talk about circumstance. Circumstance is irrelevant. It’s the lead-in to a story. It’s not the story. The story is the lessons learned.
And not the routine lessons: Politicians, right or left, are politicians; Republicans are fiscally conservative… but only when they are NOT in power; Democrats are better at running for office than governing from office; Wall Street geniuses are free market capitalists to the death… or until they go broke. Then they become poor little facists begging us to redistribute our wealth to them.
Those lessons will make for typical boring newsroom conversations. But these are not the lessons of which I speak.
What I learned from the last 12 months will, I hope, guide me the rest of my life.
Peace, people. Peace.
Life, from birth to death, is nothing more or nothing less than an opportunity to live in peace.
Life is one long classroom where the answer to every test question is the same: peace. Win the lottery? Can you live in peace? Lose your job? Can you live in peace? Lose a loved one? Get divorced? Child diagnosed with disease? Car falling apart? Can’t pay the bills? No health insurance? Neighbor is a jerk? Can’t change any of it? Control the one thing God gave you… you. Choose peace. SERENITY NOW! Sounds silly, I know. But it is what Gandhi was talking about. It is what Jesus was living. It’s how Martin Luther King Jr. changed his country.
You can have internal peace regardless of external circumstance. That is the goal. Of course I fail the goal 10 times a day, but at least I now have the correct goal in my sights.
For a long time I was making my circumstances my goal. I wanted to change the circumstances of my life so I could live in peace. I had it backward.
A number of you wrote in and told me what your last 12 months have been like. It hasn’t been pretty… circumstantially. But each of you mentioned how you have looked for the good in the midst of the darkness. You sought peace in the middle of chaos. That is the heart of this website. I’m not the best example of the lifestyle I seek. But Anna and I are committed to getting up every day and looking for the peace inside us and bringing that to each other, to our families and you.
It’s a start.
Thanks for walking with us… MR
Happy Birthday to SASTP! So glad Anna convinced you to start this blog and I love what it’s turned into, but you know that already since I’m always commenting, huh? :)
Living in peace… great challenge… not sure how to achieve it right now, but definitely a good reminder of the importance.
Looking forward to many more SASTP years! (am I the only one that’s tried to pronounce SASTP as a word? it doesn’t work too well…ha!)
-Mel
Happy Birthday to SASTP! I remember a year ago reading the last Carolina Traveler entry, and being sad & disappointed it was ending. Then I read about Stop and Smell the People and immediately my day became brighter. I have experienced many of the circumstances you describe in this entry, and am striving for peace. It’s a daily struggle, but I’m still striving!
Here’s to many more years!
Congrats to the Redding group for SASTP! What a great blessing this has been for us! What a great blessing you two (three, including the Lump) have been to us!
Peace Mike!!!!!
Happy Birthday SASTP! I’m happy to have been along for the ride :)
Happy Birthday SASTP! I enjoy coming to the site almost everyday and seeing what is new with you guys. Keep up the good work.
It has been great to read and participate in all the stories you have shared with us. Happy Birthday to SASTP. And congratulations on reaching that point in life when you have become happy with yourself. Many thanks to you both for sharing the written word in a manner that makes us all stop and think (or laugh).
Thanks for this amazing blog Mike and Anna…and Mike you summed it up so eloquently. I have always enjoyed your talent starting with The Carolina Traveler. When I read it was being cancelled part of me died and I mean that. You brought to the viewers why it was an honor to call NC home. Now that the last year has passed you have seen that God did have another door waiting for you to open. I have seen that too since losing my job 21 months ago. I still do not have a job but I have more Grace and Peace in my life that I would have never known otherwise. God Bless YOU!
Not to pick nits, as this is a beautiful post, but when the government redistributes wealth to a corporation, that’s fascism, not socialism. :)
Happy birthday SASTP!
All I can say;; life IS better in Smellville
I think that this has been my favorite posting of yours yet. May you be an inspiration to us all.
While I agree that peace isn’t ultimately dependent on our circumstances, i.e., what’s happening to us, I do think there are things I can do to create more peace. My last year hasn’t been very peaceful. Partly, it’s because I’ve been idle, without the purpose I’ve had in the past. I don’t do well with idle time. I realize this has been an opportunity to learn peace in such circumstances. I’ve probably learned something about that. But, it’s also reminded me that I have the power to take action in my life, to create circumstances that give me peace. The action-inaction tension is just one of my idols. Probably not the same for everyone. But, for me, I need a balance between moving and stillness to have my best sense of peace.
It’s hard to fathom that it’s been a year already. The only reason I can believe it is through the pictures of that little boy of yours. Here’s to more years of SASTP!
I have read from the very beginning. Our circumstances have changed and evolved too. It was beginning the night you called and interviewed me (#50,000) to now and has come full circle. Your posts always remind me to appreciate what we have and that there is always a silver lining! Thanks and congratulations!
Lee Ann