I Normally Don’t Struggle To Write, But This Week Is Different

December 18, 2012 / in General Information, Personal / by Mic Johnson

I’ve gone back and forth about what to write in this space this week.

I thought about writing on the importance of asking “Why?” in business.

I thought about writing on LinkedIn.

I thought about writing on how being a social business is about, more than anything else, the culture of an organization. 

I thought about writing on a Twitter moderation I did for a client’s annual luncheon recently.

I thought about writing on Christmas and the holiday spirit. 

I thought about writing a New Year’s Resolutions post. 

But I just can’t do it.

Not this week. 

I just can’t stop thinking about what happened in Newtown, Connecticut. 

I can’t stop thinking about those 6-7 year olds and the adults whose lives ended way too early and way too unnecessarily. 

I can’t stop thinking about the first responders that were on the scene and how their lives will never be the same. 

I can’t stop thinking about the parents and families that are trying to find answers they will never get.

I can’t stop thinking about the idea that “life goes on” for the rest of us…a nation…a world… in mourning, while the funerals for all of the victims make us question that very cliche. 

I can’t stop thinking about how helpless I feel. 

I can’t stop thinking about how angry I feel. 

I can’t stop thinking about how compassionate I feel. 

I can’t stop thinking about how conflicted I feel. 

I can’t stop thinking about how cynical people are. 

I can’t stop thinking about how tired I am of negative people. 

I can’t stop thinking about how defensive people are. 

I can’t stop thinking about how much we all complain. 

I can’t stop thinking about how to make sense of so many things that don’t make sense. 

I can’t stop thinking what I…what all of us…are supposed to learn from this. 

I can’t stop thinking about how quick so many of us are to assign blame and project our anger on others. 

I can’t stop thinking about how events like this highlight, in the oddest irony of all, the worst and best of Americans. 

I can’t stop thinking about what I can do to make a difference. 

I can’t stop thinking about what we all can do to make a difference. 

I can’t stop thinking about how I want a better America for all of us, for our children, for their children, and for all of the generations to come. 

I can stop thinking about the moral obligation I feel to not let those children and adults die in vain. 

I’ll leave you with a Facebook post of mine below from earlier this week. It doesn’t begin to provide the solutions to everything you just read.

But it’s where I’m going to start. 

“In the wake of what happened last week in Newtown, I’m going to try a little harder every day to be a better ME…a better husband, a better son, a better brother, a better friend, a better uncle, a better cousin, a better employee…..a better person….focusing on the moment I am in…being present in the NOW…and being thankful for everything and everyone I have in my life. All we have is today… #Newtown26”