“Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity...” Thomas Merton.

When I was a political reporter in the 1980s, I loved flying around Pennsylvania – I was writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer – with the seasoned old pols visiting their vast and thinly-populated districts.

It was great fun; we stopped in Mason Halls, American Legions, bars, and visiting the old men who sat in parks.

Politics was, of course, different then, a friendly and often corrupt fraternity, not the blood sport of fanatics and ideologues. A colleague told me that on my beat, a genuine conviction was as rare as a sober priest. Politicians were, above all, deal makers, not fanatics.

Still, I loved those guys; they were nothing but real.

We would usually fly around in a chartered and tiny plane visiting the gritty coal towns of the central part of the state. The old hands were amazing politicians – they could hit the ground running, day or night, rain or sun, drunk or sober.

It was understood that conversations inside of the plane late at night were off the record, but they were the best conversations for me, as the pols would let their guard down and reveal their true natures.

I remember one late night, Patrick, the powerful Assembly candidate I was writing about, had had some wine and was relaxing, the view out the window was all black.

“Politics is like a marathon in the Olympics,” he said, “it’s not a short race. You have to have the long view; you have to keep your feet on the ground, you have to find your cruising speed.”

It was all about perspective, he said. If you didn’t have one,  you couldn’t last. It was never personal. That idea took hold.

This year and the last few are all about finding a cruising speed for me.

We have a president with a genius and passion for disturbing and obsessing people. We have a Pandemic that crept up on us and upended our lives, sickened and killed thousands, as well as expectations, freedom, and peace of mind.

On top of that, there is a presidential election coming up sure to arouse anger and divide us even farther.  This year, it’s as easy to be frightened or angry as to breathe. There are lots of good reasons to be unsettled and worried about the future.

As someone who has been treated for mental illness for some years, and spent almost 30 years in therapy, I’m learning that it’s the crazy ones who sometimes end up sane since we get help if we are messed up enough, and the sane people are often the ones to snap when there’s trouble.

They never see it coming.

I know an awful lot of sane people who seem to have gone mad this year. The crazy people feel right at home, the world is coming around to them.

I think there is no better way to get rational than if I have no other choice. This year, I have no other choice; I don’t want to get sick again.

There are obvious ways to stay grounded – therapy, medication, exercise, meditation, fencing or tennis, obsessing on work, binging,  carving or sewing, or knitting. But this year may ask more of us than that.

And those things don’t seem to be cutting it for a lot of people – just look anywhere on Facebook or Twitter or any cable news channel. People are worried, unhappy. Listen to your friends at dinner (you remember friends and dinner?)

I look upon it this way. My soul and my psyche is a cup. I get to decide what I put in it and what I don’t.

What goes in my cup:

Loving my wife, daughter, granddaughter, dogs, donkeys, barn cats, and sometimes, even sheep. Good music, good books, good friends. As for the news, I find one outlet that I trust, and I look at it twice a day, once in the morning, once just before dinner. Never at night, never after 6 p.m., I look for a place that offers facts, not arguments or opinion or much commentary. I learn what I need to learn.

What does not go into the cup:

politics, argument, opening my news apps all day, dismemberment movies, anything to with Scandanavian serial killers, gardening for hours, the political ruminations of friends, or anything else that makes me feel bad or angry or scared.

This has been easier since my parents passed away.

I just put that stuff in the cup, I don’t want it in me.

My friend Patrick the Assemblyman taught me a lot. Perspective is everything.

This year is going to be the year of bad news and more bad news.

Even the so-called recovery turns out to be bad news. The Pandemic will be shaping our lives for a year or so. And it seems that humans are genetically structured to mess things up, including the earth itself.

There is nothing we can do about it but be careful and wise, and to find people we can listen to and listen to them.

I like the Dalai Lama’s injunction that our lives are best revealed by how well we learn to let go, among other things.

The Pandemic is out of our hands, it will do what it chooses to do, and it brings me back to the idea of Radical Acceptance, which has grounded me for some years now. I have let go of the opinion that I can change the course of history, or that someone is always to blame when it goes awry.

Unless you went to Catholic school, nobody told us that life is tough as often as not. Nobody wants to experience pain, sadness,  loss, disappointment, or anger. I didn’t know they were such an integral part of life; my parents would never have thought to teach me that; neither did my teachers.

I found out for myself.

When I fought the reality of pain and disappointment, I also lost the ability to feel joy.

Avoidance of reality, an inability to accept life and death, and pain is the mother of depression and anxiety, the enemy of peace of mind.

I’ve trained myself to say at least once a day, “This is the situation we are in. I don’t want it, like it, or approve of it. I don’t think it’s all right, but it is what it is, I really can’t do a thing about it. I choose to live.”

I’ll offer an example that might be relevant to many of the people reading this. I’ll use our President, Donald Trump, as an example.

Radical acceptance is not about excusing or absolving or forgiving him for what you might or might nor feel he has done, to the country, and in a sense, to you personally.

Radical acceptance means you are merely acknowledging reality, a/k/a truth. He is here, millions of people want him to be here and put him here. Any shrink worth a cup of coffee will tell you that fighting reality is poison, it is the mother of anxiety, panic, rage, and depression. Liberation begins with truth.

It ends there as well.

While pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. And suffering is is what happens when we refuse to accept the pain in the world and our lives.

For at least the next six or seven months, Politics and Pandemics will be daily elements in our lives. In might be five or six years of both, we can’t know, and anyone who claims to know is selling snake oil. Best get used to it.

The way I approach it is this:  I assume that President Trump, our divisive politics, and the Pandemic will go on for years, possibly as long as I am alive. It isn’t that I know this to be true, or that I  believe it to be true – of course, I can’t say and can’t claim to know.

But by assuming that, I accept whatever reality befalls the people I love and me.

And whatever happens, is either what I expected or not as bad. Donald Trump is not going to kill me; neither is any other politician. Neither is the Pandemic if I pay attention and stay alert.

I am no longer surprised either by politics or the coronavirus. I accept both as a reality of my life. My purpose is to live fully and meaningfully around them. I will adjust. Most of us, like our dogs, are great adaptors. They are better at it than we are.

Unlike them, we know death is not only a possibility but a certainty. It makes us edgy.

I guess the past two weeks have been among the most meaningful, productive, and joyous of my life. I am not ashamed of that or afraid to admit it.

I am busy and engaged, helping hungry people eat, older people stay alive, loving my wife, dogs, and animals, restoring some parts of my broken family, writing as well, or better than I ever have.

But almost everyone around me is angry, depressed, or frightened about the future. So I accept that there is something wrong with me.

I am keenly aware of the enormous suffering and death of others, but I accept that also as part of life. It has always been a part of life; it will always be a part of life. And human life has often – continuously in fact – been much worse than our lives are right now.

There’s a good reason God wanted to drown all the people he created. Human beings are not always lovely or wise, are not programmed to be happy all the time. I look for my spots and hang onto them, savor them, remember them, and am grateful for them.

Light follows darkness; death follows life; we are hopelessly flawed creatures. But unlike any other animal, we can also find peace and joy, love, and meaning. That is the beauty of being human. We are unique in every way.

We can grow and change.

You could make a good case that it is the crazy people who are the sanest.

I have found my cruising speed by accepting life, not fighting it, raging about it,  arguing about it, resenting it, or counting my grievances. I respect life, and so life has respected me in return and given me a break.

I’ve been given the gift of redemption and rebirth.

Life has given me many chances.

I won’t throw those chances away, or waste them,  not even for a mad President or a vicious disease. I’ve found my firm ground, and just in the nick of time.