Aug 1, 2026
I was reading the news recently thinking to myself, “We have lost our minds!”
How could a species be so blind to destroy the environment it calls home in the name of profit for a very select few? How can we be solving problems like we did when we were Neanderthals, killing each other to get what we want? How is it that in the “land of the free,” we are losing more and more of our rights, especially as women? How are we not protecting children from predators and how and why are we letting people starve to death? We have definitely lost our minds.
We have also lost our hearts. We are separate from each other, listening to our own curated news feeds and judging each other as wrong, not looking for solutions that serve the greater good. When I was in my Master’s program at the University of Santa Monica studying Spiritual Psychology, we were taught to look for solutions that were for the highest good of all. The highest good of all. Imagine if we were governed by people looking for the highest good for all? And not only for all people, but for the planet as well? We would be living in a different world. We have these types of solutions; we just don’t have the will to implement them. Why don’t we end subsidies to polluting fossil fuels? Why don’t we put a tax on carbon and make polluters pay and use funds to create more clean energy? Why don’t we support regenerative agriculture and small scale organic farming that helps people and the planet versus subsidizing industrial agriculture that is polluting the planet? Why don’t we ban single-use plastics that pollute our oceans and waterways? Why don’t we save the whales already?
I know I have lost my mind and often my heart witnessing the destruction of the environment, the erosion of hard fought rights and protections for women and the earth, as well as the demonization of immigrants in our current political climate. I have judged, and I have suffered. We are not going to create a more just, sustainable, peaceful and healthy world for all by judging each other. We have to stay focused on solutions that serve the greater good. We have been given such a miraculous gift in this life, our astonishing human bodies capable of extraordinary things like falling in love and our unfathomably rich and diverse planet full of caterpillars that turn into butterflies and other magical things. Why do we destroy when we can create and nurture and love?
We need to elect people who support something better for the greater good, not something better for a select few who hoard resources and build higher fences. Force and killing people and the planet that sustains us is the last resort of any sane person. To me, it is clear that we have lost our minds. The question is, can we restore our hearts and lead from the knowing that we are all one, interconnected, interdependent and capable of miraculous things when we remember who we are?
This post originally appeared in my monthly column in The Aspen Times.
