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| Be still and check your own heart |
The Enemy Within
When I first
graduated from college, I accepted a job as a researcher for the City of
Jacksonville’s Victim’s Assistance Office. One of my duties was to help design
and implement a city-wide survey concerning crime victimization.
I learned of
the debilitating effect that crime has on its victims. Very rarely do we think
of the aftermath of the crime, yet this is when the impact is most devastating.
Even if a
person had been robbed of something which they said had little value to them, the victims
of the crime experience a period of depression, fear of leaving their home and
sometimes a serious physical and or psychological illness.
I was also learned
about the relationship between the fear of crime and one’s actual encounter
with it. People feared crime at a much
higher rate than they had been victimized by it.
The Home
Security business is a multi-billion dollar industry. People are much more
concerned about what may come into their home than they are with the threat
that comes from family and loved ones and even less with what they do to
themselves.
We are wired to avoid and flee
danger. But what if you are your own worst enemy? What alarm can protect you from the
negative thoughts and habits that you have learned?
Years ago
when the terrorist Timothy McVeigh was on the loose, I was not amazed by the
heightened security at the airport, however, I was somewhat shocked by the fact
that all of the people who had been pulled over for an extra screening, myself
included, looked nothing like the “boy next door” McVeigh.
I loudly wondered
why we were all suspect when a man who looked like McVeigh’s twin informed me
that a terrorist was on the loose.
If you haven’t already figured it out,
here’s my point; we must always protect ourselves from an outside danger, but more
often than not, the real threat to our life and dreams comes from within.
Search your own heart,
motives, beliefs and actions to see if you are your own worst enemy, and if you
are, be lenient and show mercy.
Be you, be well, be
protected.
Bertice Berry, PhD.
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