2022 March 1: Live Ukraine Rally in NY

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website by, for, and about Baby Boomers. 

Tonight's actually going to be very different because  I 'm not going to be talking about motivation and things like that.  I ’m going to be talking about taking action. I did some posts and a few things, and I did the posters regarding the invasion of Ukraine. Right now,  I 'm standing in my little local town at the local traffic circle, and it's down around 34-36 degrees and raining, and it's about eight o'clock at night.  I 'm standing here with a rather large sign that says Support Ukraine. 

 I 've got a fair number of people who responded very well and have been very supportive. One person stopped almost in tears to thank me for the efforts.  I t turned out they were just coming back from a church service at the Ukrainian Catholic church in a nearby town. A lot of people are honking, and also a number of people are just stopping to say thank you. 

This isn't a wow aren't I amazing? sort of thing, so why what's the point of all this? Remember one of the things we keep talking about is how you, as an individual, can make a difference. This happens to be a very important matter to me.  I 'm doing this partially for the Ukrainians (of course), but also for my grandchildren.  It is really a defining moment in democracy and the world order right now, and so I think it's worth being very involved, and if that means a little discomfort like standing in the rain for a couple hours so be  it. Actually that just makes my message even stronger, because people are looking at me saying What's this old guy doing standing out here holding the sign saying Support Ukraine? 

My goal tonight was to get even one percent of the people to think about this matter who hadn't thought about it before. That'll be a wild success for me, and at this point, I think probably about 300-400 cars have gone by in the past hour and a half. I didn't get here till late, so that means only three or four people hopefully may do something like write their Congressperson or make some change or talk about it, or when somebody says I don't care about that, you know it's actually pretty important to us and just get people thinking. 

That's the real point of the Live tonight is to let you know that even as an individual, your actions make a huge difference. Because of that, you can make a big effect in the world, hopefully a big positive effect. 

It's going to be a real short one tonight because that's about it. I had nothing particularly prepared or scripted, I just wanted to tell you what I was up to, and to tell you the positive feedback, both personally and hopefully in the policies of our government, and so tonight is the State of the Union address. I'm going to be leaving fairly soon to get home to watch that, because I really want to see what our president says. Right now, everyone's been sitting back saying to Ukraine Oh yeah we'll send some money. 

Some of the European countries have been extremely proactive, don't misunderstand me, but the US has been taking pretty much a step back, hands-off sort of attitude. I understand it to some degree, but on the other hand, it's a lot like half of the United States trying to invade Texas. The population of Russia is half of the United States, and they're going after a country that's the size of Texas with about twice as many people. Think about that, and really think about it hard. 

Now think about going out and working for a cause that you believe in. Maybe it messes up your evening a little bit, but a stand in the rain compared to the the other things at stake, it's pretty small really, so I encourage you all to think about what matters to you, promote it heavily, go out and work to make it happen.

As always, live the life that you dream of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and good wishes to everybody tonight. See you next week on 7EveryMinute  and 7EveryMinute .com.