How To Lower Your Stress From The Political Divide

Robert Nahas January 3, 2020

Just the mention of “politics” raises one’s heart rate. But rest assured, this article is about how to decompress from the war of politics.

I had my annual phone call with a dear childhood friend recently. Our usual catching up on things and how life is going was clouded by his upset of having lost so many friends through disagreements on which side is completely wrong and evil for their views.

Having just been on Facebook, he was so stressed out it wasn’t funny. He expressed that his quality of life had dropped from what has been happening all around us. Sound familiar?

With the volatility of social media daggers flying back and forth, and so much hatred going around willy-nilly, it may seem like there’s nothing anyone can do to help our country to exhale.

A Possible Solution?

There has always been a rift between political parties, but it has grown substantially over the last 3 years and emotions have gotten out of hand.

It’s important to remember that for anyone to get very upset about something, they have to be passionate. They have to love it so much that they just lose themselves to lower emotions because someone dared to go against it.

This brings us to how we can look at anyone who disagrees with our own views and help lessen the tension that can so quickly get out of hand.

What happens is when we listen to the news and go on Facebook or Twitter to face the ongoing argument, we immediately start to feel worse; and it’s a fast dwindling spiral from there. Any real communication degrades into a screaming match of who’s a bigger fool.

Not only has your day been ruined, you’re now really mad at the world—especially at those “idiots on the other side”. But wait a minute, a few months or years ago, these were our friends! What the hell?

It has gotten so bad that many of us don’t even want to have a holiday dinner with friends or family because of the tension and serious potential for a big blowup or just not having a good time.

But this article isn’t about a reason to be angry. It’s about how you can destress yourself and get back to feeling better about life again. It involves you personally and those you interact with.

First, understand that the hatred you feel for anyone else is because you’ve been told that “they are the enemy” and “they are dangerous to your self-preservation”. This is how you pit a country against itself.

I have no question that if I were in danger, you would come to help, and I would do this for you. This is because that is who we really are as Americans.

It is natural as humans to have admiration for others. It is unnatural to hate.

Hatred has to simmer and stew with lies about the other in order to overtake our true identity as a cohesive civil people.

Here is What You Can Do

Here is some truth about the people you may be hating right now because of their views:

If a natural catastrophe were to happen in our country today, we would all set aside our differences and band together. That’s proof the continental divide we have today has been created and we’ve all been duped.

The thing to do is:

  1. lessen your time on social media,

  2. immediately stop reading posts that upset you,

  3. cut down watching the news, especially those reporters who contribute to the problem by reporting sour opinions,

  4. and most of all… realize just how much anyone who starts to argue with you about our country or their side actually LOVES our country just as much as you. That is something to admire in them. Something to respect about them.

So the next time you either see an argument or get into one yourself, just tell the other person how much you admire their love for our country, and walk or click away. 

This is how we can do our part in closing the great divide we have as a country and stop the forwarding of hatred. This will allow us all to relax about it and put our attention on more positive, productive things.

Understanding that we are not our own enemies is what’s important. We are the United States of America. And the qualities we all possess, like understanding, empathy, compassion and respect are greater and more powerful than hatred, IF we exercise them regularly.

We need to uphold the humans rights of everyone, show respect for every president in office, respect each other as a nation and set a good example to the world, who is watching our every move.

We, as a country, need to break the chain of hate. The media needs to stop perpetuating the hate. Social media needs to stop forwarding the hate. Politicians need to step up and work together to do what we’ve asked of them—like combat our real enemies of homelessness and healthcare, and to protect us from foreign threats and keep us thriving.

If we all realize that no American is the enemy, there will be no civil war to fight, only civil people.

 

Robert Nahas is a contributor at www.thriveglobal.com 

Don’t Get Left in the Dark When It Comes to Understanding Medicare 

Sharon Wagner June 17, 2019

Do you ever feel like you need to be a rocket scientist to understand Medicare? Well, you are not alone. For most seniors, making sense of it all is a constant battle. Seniors need Medicare, and all its parts, to ensure their healthcare needs are met. Thankfully, your experience with Medicare does not have to be complicated. Here are a few ways you can make your healthcare coverage much easier to understand.

Make Use of Medicare Tools and Resources 

If you want to know which Medicare coverage is best for you, you need to do a little homework. So long as you have a basic understanding of the internet, you can easily gain access to online Medicare and Medicare Advantage resources that will break down the benefits offered by each plan part. These resources are developed with internet novices in mind, so you definitely won’t need a PhD to figure them out. But don’t be afraid to ask a family member or friend to help you out if you are not savvy when it comes to the web. If you have a smartphone and feel comfortable using it, you can even download a Medicare app to easily figure out what is covered by your current plan, and what is not. This app only details Medicare Part A and Part B coverage, but it is still very useful for seniors. When looking for Medicare help, just be aware that Medicare scam attempts are common. Never give out any sensitive information over the phone and hang up on any suspicious calls.

Understand Medicare Part A, B, C, and D, and Supplements 

There are so many parts and details to Medicare for you to understand. So it’s no wonder it can get confusing, for seniors and really anyone. Web articles can be extremely helpful in laying out the differences between the ABC and D’s of Medicare, as well as available supplements. To make matters simpler, think of Medicare Part A as your most basic coverage for hospitals. Part B is what you will use for doctor’s visits and other preventive care, which can include anything from a flu shot to X-rays, but limitations do apply. The rest is where coverage details get really murky. You need to add Part D in order to have prescription drugs covered, but you can also opt to combine this with a Medicare Advantage plan. You do need to pay a premium for prescription drug coverage, but your costs will depend on your plan provider and options.

Write Down Your Important Medicare Enrollment Dates 

Even with simplified explanations and tools, you may be feeling overwhelmed. The best way to reduce that stress is to review articles like this well ahead of your enrollment period. Not sure when that is? Well, if you are new to Medicare and are getting ready to turn 65, you will sign up during your Initial Enrollment Period (IEP). You can sign up for coverage within the three months leading up to your birthday or the three months after. Either way, your plan will kick in when you turn 65. Missed the IEP? That’s okay! You can still sign up for health care coverage later on in the year during Open Enrollment (OEP), which typically starts in October and ends in the beginning of December. Just be aware that 2019 brings important changes for Medicare’s OEP timeframe. You may see lower premiums or added benefits by switching your plan, so be sure to do your homework well ahead of time.

You need experts to manage your health, but you shouldn’t have to be an expert to manage your Medicare coverage. If you’ve made it this far, you have plenty more tools at your disposal for decoding your Medicare mysteries and questions. You can use these helpful resources on your own, or ask a family member to sit down with you and help you figure them out. However you make sense of all that Medicare has to offer, be sure to do it in time to make changes that will matter the most for your healthcare coverage.

 

Learn more about author Sharon Wagner’s organization seniorfriendly.info

Protecting your Market Identity:  Addressing External Strengths and Threats

Sarah Sherwood February 21, 2019

In my experience, CEOs and senior management generally spend their days managing internal issues: tasks like managing company performance, unsettled budgets, and staff conflicts. Frustrated, they would like to pay more attention to what it is they believe they have been hired to do—focus on more significant external issues such as competitive research and competitor activity, customer behavior, and market trends and analysis. A study reported in the Harvard Business Review reported they spend just three percent of their time with customers.  The same was true with investors. As a result of this, the distracted CEO is at times frustrated, and for good reason. The effect we often see are weak strategic plans—fit neatly into a boiler plate of mission, goals and quotas void of an overall objective, and trendy-worded strategies that don’t amount to much.  When the quarterly numbers appear, there is both good news and bad. What keeps the CEO up at night is the fear that the company is merely limping along.

I’ve been a publicist for 29 years now and like many of my peers, I see that CEOs who prioritize their time establishing a clear corporate identity, while delegating the important role of internal caretaking, tend to thrive more. Research backs up this concept: that a CEO is better fit to take the shared internal culture and strengths and build key relationships that externally back up and affirm a company’s claims.

What leads to this impasse I describe earlier is the mistaken philosophy that external issues, such as communications, should be delegated and are somehow fully taken care of without the CEO’s involvement. CMO’s are notoriously important to crafting and maintaining a strong corporate identity, but they are not performing to their potential without the leadership and active involvement of the CEO.  There can be a natural partnership between the two roles.

Many companies do not even have a CMO. Their reputation and identity does limp along, and they often wonder why they aren’t better known and engaged with companies and people they can help. It is because reputation isn’t prioritized at the highest levels of the company or organization.  Reputation management is by nature a senior management function, yet companies are delegating reputation to those without enough experience. Once in a crisis, the CEO’s position matters because it magnifies this very problem—and the organization’s alertness to consumer criticism and wide spread misinformation is not always remedied with a CEO that must play catch up.

External management involves the message every CEO wants to provide its publics.  Most realize you cannot teach your lesson without a wide classroom. Ironically, more opportunities exist than ever: Major newspaper circulation is up dramatically; digital media outlets abound; there are tools to develop relevant and powerful strategic plans and new apps that make video production and circulation easy and affordable for any company. A CEO has a menu of possibilities at his or her fingertips.  Are you there or are you struggling?

If you don’t feel fulfilled concentrating on internal issues so much, maybe you shouldn’t.

Other Helpful Reading:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90220517/this-is-how-successful-ceos-spend-their-time

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/making-time-management-the-organizations-priority

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