It feels like bad news bombards us on every front these days. Sometimes, I mentally wince before tapping on a news app because it’s usually full of troubling headlines. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have intensified many already existing problems, and the continual cycle of stressful news has caused increased suffering from stress, anxiety, and depression, as many articles have recently shown.
We live in trying and stressful times. Now, more than ever, we need to have hope. Today, hope is generally considered a feeling of wishing for or desiring something. Is that the kind of hope we need?
People say things like “I hope our team wins” or “I hope I get this job.” We desire these things to happen, considering our preferred outcome possible but not assured.
In April 2019, Global News reporter Jules Knox filed an article revealing that senior health care is now the fastest growing sector of the British Columbia economy. Even with significantly improved wages, many job vacancies in elder care are still unfilled, leaving seniors not always receiving expected support and attention. Across the nation fewer workers are available to fill jobs of many descriptions. Perhaps you have noticed that there are more and more empty playgrounds. Where have the children gone? Why is this happening?
A growing number of parents are taking their children out of public school systems in favor of private and charter schools. And not a few are choosing to teach their children at home. Why? The answer is obvious. They are fed up with activists teaching their children values to which they don’t agree. Where are we headed? Considering how much has changed in the last five years, what pressures will you face trying to raise your children over the next five years? The thought is alarming!
Starting in March 2019, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Hong Kong to show their dislike for a law that would allow suspected criminals, who had allegedly committed a crime in mainland China, to be extradited from Hong Kong back to China to face trial. Some demonstrations became violent, with the smashing of shops and vehicles and the throwing of Molotov cocktails and other projectiles at police who were trying restore order. So, are the protests worth the consequence?