Summer, invincible

An ode to joyous persistence

This week, after a couple of years of wrangling, the House of Representatives and the US Senate passed a reconciled package of housing-related legislation: The 21st Century Road to Housing Act.

It is the most significant federal housing action in well more than a decade. Its provisions should help boost housing supply, reducing regulatory barriers, modernizing existing programs, and enhancing efficiency and productivity in program execution.

Is it needed? Absolutely.

Is it perfect? No.

Is it good? Good enough.

The fact that it had huge — unprecedented in this era — bipartisan support shows that the nation’s housing crisis impacts a deep and broad swath of the public. It is a crisis that has hit home…literally and figuratively.

So, it was (add many expletives of your choice) that the President has held the bill hostage, and refused to sign it while he coerces congress into supporting one of his unconscionable pet priorities. One that will potentially disenfranchise millions and harm countless more,

Just another day in the current cultural paradise called America. (Sarcasm off.)

Those that know me know that I am not a naturally perky person. I tend to not only view the glass as half-empty, but also suspect that it contains acid. And way too much glass.

I have written about this before:

There’s a lot to be unhappy with.

I have had enough. I know most of you have also.

But I refuse to be made unhappy.

So what to do?

Eschew the swamp, the political warfare, and the constant bombardment of bad actions and actors that produces rage, then exhaustion. Don’t dismiss it, but refuse to wallow in it.

Instead, channel sunshine, warm days, local produce, and the glories of the small victories that we achieve — can achieve — every day. Savor what we can do, rather than focus on what we are being prevented from doing. (And we ARE achieving much.)

While the living is far from easy, it is summertime. The time to brighten and lighten your psychic load. It is necessary to do so if we are to continue to effectively resist and persist over the long term. We cannot be constantly in fight or flight mode. We must be the proverbial happy warriors.

Here are some words and thoughts to assist in your seasonal attitude adjustment:

We will overcome. It is an outcome already in progress.

😎

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

“I will arise and go now, for always night and day. I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.” - William Butler Yeats

“My dear, In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.I realized, through it all, that…In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.

Truly yours, Albert Camus