Tag: pandemic

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Diffusing anger

To diffuse my own anger in my heart, I tend to just sit with it, shout at the walls if I need to, until I come out of that thought spiral. To help with coming out of that thought spiral, I think about the things I’ve done that were praiseworthy, or the nice things others have said to me.

The Gregory Decapolite YouTube channel recommends the immediate application of the Jesus Prayer to diffuse anger in a particular situation. While it is not the thing I’d prefer to do, it works for some particularly religious Orthodox Christians.

I just ground myself in my own virtue of humility, or at least, not responding immediately to the hurtful thing that my adversary has said to me. But there is more trolling on social media than in the real world, I can diffuse the anger directed at me on social media more easily than I can ignore an insult in real life. The insults and on occasion, threats of violence; are far more hurtful than anything social media can produce.

When I’m insulted on YouTube, I just ignore it, bless the aggressor, thank them for the comment, then move onto something else. I don’t get into fights, either online or in real.

It is a very angry world out there, caused by heightened anxiety over the pandemic and the supposed coming of the end of the world. I personally don’t anticipate the end of the world unless I’m suffering particularly bad mental illness, but I understand lots of people, Christian and non-Christian, expect the end to come within the next millennia.

But God bless the world. Whatever happens, it is His permitted will. God would not allow it unless it were educative or instructive. God allows all bad things to happen to teach people humility. As Satan was bound and cast out from heaven due to his pride, so to re-enter paradise, we must have humility. What is the brief breath of our life, compared to the ocean of eternity? Let us repent now, before the gate of mercy closes.

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I pray for peace

The pandemic has caused many to die from infection. But these things have happened before. I believe there was a Spanish flu ravaging the country in the early 20th century, correct me if I’m wrong.

I was reading today in one of the gospels that there will be ‘pestilences’ as a sign before the coming of the son of man. What He meant is that plagues, such as covid, will happen before the son of God comes in His glory with the angels.

Medicine has advanced so much. But my grandma said ‘we had typhoid and cholera back in China, why are we so scared of a simple flu?’ My grandma grew up in China, before being kicked out by the communists. To answer her question, I just say, society has gotten a lot weaker since the beginning of the communist era in China. Some of our great grandparents and grandparents fought in world wars and survived the great depression, while we are trying the kill ourselves just because ‘life doesn’t go our way.’

I must admit, I am much weaker than other people of the past. I’m weaker than my parents and many of my own generation. I sit at home, vegetating on a pension! And I’m only 32 years old!

I tried to be a cadet in 2005, but it broke me, and gave me mental illness! I just don’t have the strength to live my life, no matter what!

Even holidays would do me no good, as I would worry that I am not worthy of the holiday, as I get a permanent holiday anyway through not working.

I worry about money. Because in Proverbs, Solomon says ‘money maketh wings, and flyeth away.’ So I don’t have either the capacity to make my own money, nor enough money to live on. If I wasn’t living with my parents, I’d be in a very bad state.