We have a great tendency to dwell, to dwell on what we dislike, some grievance, an act by someone personal, bureaucratic, or political that sticks in our craw, irks us, makes us feel angry, disrespected, disheartened, ignored, alone. Do not let that feeling win. “This day is too dear.”

Put differently, when you look at the folly that masquerades today as news, politics, and leadership, there is a kind of dark attraction to it, to admiring the problem, and how wildly off base we are.

We look at politicians who betray us daily, prove untrustworthy, say they won’t raise taxes than do, say they won’t spend but then do, and say they care about our rights but they don’t. We see them defending the indefensible, parading untruth as truth, replacing hope with duplicity.

Oddly, while we would prefer to be self-reliant – as our grandparents were – we get pulled into this crazy slipstream, into the vortex. We are invited by media, social media to indulge our worst.

This, of course – and we all know it – gets us nowhere. It drags us down. This is the way of the world, the current we swim in, just humanity – made worse by technology. But there is … a better way.

There is a way, to borrow a phrase, to be “in the world but not of it,” swim among sharks, but not be a shark. The idea is Christian, reflected in John 17, Christ’s words, being in the world but “not of it.”

Coming back to earth, how do you escape the negativity, calls to become hysterical, all the blame, chaos, fear, and mock crises? How do we get past a world of low integrity, and no accountability?

The answer is reminding yourself how good it feels to be self-reliant, how positive your life really is, what you can do without, and how much you do not need excess government or feckless leaders.

You may call me an inveterate optimist, but we all know what we draw strength from – the people, faith, purpose, and ideas that add to life, just as we know the reverse, those who sap it, run us down.

We actually all know how to shake off soreness, our discontents, distastes, and disabilities in favor of something better. We know how to wake up, look at the day, breathe fresh purpose into it, and rise above the din created by the mob. We know self-confidence, self-assuredness, and mission focus.

Wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, who comes back to me now and then with his incisive magic, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” With effort, we can do that.

Similarly, he wrote, “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” Despite his own trials, he lived that sentiment.

So what contributes to doing this? Where do we find the strength to banish the world’s drag, refill our sails, replace irons with billows, and be our best selves?

Emerson famously wrote an essay on “Self-Reliance,” which turned ideas like, “Always do what you are afraid to do.” Doing the hard thing, you grow, as does confidence.

What else? When we wonder if we can, just do it. Take a good risk, challenge nature, rise to service, look around to help someone, and do it just because – and a virtuous circle starts.

One of my favorite quotes, which I carry around because I love it, captures a similar reality. Wrote William Wordsworth: “The best portion of a good man’s life … His little, unremembered acts of kindness and love.” How simple is that? And how true.

So, when the world seems to encircle you, close in like a dense fog, reach above it for the sun. The sun is always there. As Emerson wrote, in his “Collected Poems:”

“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).