Words to Live By

It’s a lost slogan, coined to keep the British people composed and focused as the threat of Hitler’s invasion became imminent. Though 2 million copies were printed, only a few were actually circulated. In someone’s opinion, the national disaster never reached the level that required this “big gun” of a philosophy to be rolled out. But the poster was recently rediscovered, and evidently speaks enough to the harried, hassled, hyped and horrified 21st-century everyman that it has become a cult sensation.

Imagine, if you will, a government encouraging its constituents to keep calm. Almost impossible to fathom, isn’t it, in today’s world of high-decibel hyperbole that calls us to just the opposite—to screaming frenzy, panic and all-encompassing anger?

And yet, if there was real danger… if true, tangible disaster threatened, “they” would be exhorting us to…KEEP CALM. Don’t panic. Chillax. No government wants to deal with millions of terrified, witless citizens AND a national catastrophe at the same time.

So when government, or someone inside the government, seems to be goading you to anger and fear; attempting to whip you into a fury about something that only “they” can fix…

You can pretty much conclude there is no real danger. A real threat would need you calm and focused.

Let’s all simply remember this, shall we? Chant it like a mantra, every time someone—the media or an elected official, our next-door-neighbor or an evangelist, or all of the above—tries to plant fear or anger in our hearts…

KEEP CALM
AND CARRY ON.