Focus on what you can control and how you react to the chaos
Published Dominion Post, Jun. 29, 2025. Reprinted with permission.
“Remain calm, all is well!”
Those words were uttered by actor Kevin Bacon, a man clearly in over his head, while standing in the middle of chaos in the classic movie “Animal House.” None of the events unraveling on the screen is under control.
As pandemonium unravels, a mother grabs her child and flees, the mayor is focused on the inventory of his Cadillac dealership, the police are easily distracted and redirected by proclaiming “they are looting the Food King” and the ROTC leader loads his gun and prepares to shoot live ammunition into a crowd of innocent bystanders. Despite the comedic intention, the scene reveals some telling character attributes.
This Hollywood-created state of disorder feels downright familiar when compared with the topsy-turvy state of confusion and disorder in America right now. As art imitates life, Americans are finding and revealing their own characters.
What do we do? We cannot individually control the chaos surrounding us, but we can focus on what we can control. We can control how we react to the chaos. Like the actors in the movie scene, each of us reveals the truth of what we value.
A recent community meeting in Morgantown gives us examples of the types of chaos in America right now: A senior citizen concerned that he will no longer be able to get, much less afford, his life-sustaining medications. A new father who feels robbed that his family is living in fear instead of enjoying their new baby’s arrival and first year of life; his foreign born (now naturalized) wife is literally afraid to leave the house for fear of being swept up by federal agents. Government employees whose careers have been destroyed. Educators who fear retribution for teaching facts and evidence-based lessons instead of state-sanctioned propaganda. These tensions are real.
As the United States of America prepares to celebrate 249 years of independence from monarchy, take some time to reflect on what you value. What will you protect if faced with an unplanned or chaotic crisis?
Will we make it to 250 years at the rate the checks and balances are failing across our three branches of government? Constitutional guardrails have sustained the United States as the longest surviving democracy in history. What happens without them?
As children, many of us recited the Pledge of Allegiance every day for 13 years of public education. Never has liberty and justice for all meant ALL. Yet, when the founders signed the Declaration of Independence, they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, because they were so dedicated, believed so strongly in the cause of independence.
Protect and defend what you value, but understand that personal values do not give you the right to rob your neighbor of their life, liberty or pursuit of happiness. Live your American Dream, be proud of your accomplishments and let others pursue their dream in peace.
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In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. …
(archives.gov)