Last week I talked about our friend in Oman who was emotional after a deadly Iran drone attack not far from his factory. “Oman is a peaceful country. We are friends with everyone. We are still trading with Iran. They are crazy! Why would they attack a market and an industrial area with no military ties.” The war now means more to me than higher gasoline prices. I felt bad for my friend and anger against the Iranian government. We have a lot of Iranian friends who left decades ago because of government atrocities. They are smart industrious people.

Our community, country and world have many problems to solve. People need help. We can choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution. Never sell yourself or our region short. People in our region are making a global difference. Horizontal drilling in the Shale Crescent USA helped to end the energy crisis. We are producing more natural gas than every nation in the world except Russia and the rest of the USA. Natural gas from our region cleaned up the air in New Delhi, India saving thousands of children from COPD. Bringing manufacturing back to the Shale Crescent from overseas, reduced transportation costs and global emissions. The industrial growth in the Ohio Valley is real. Our environment is cleaner. Streams previously orange with mine acid, sewage and industrial waste are full of fish. A map released this week by Visual Capitalists showed where people are moving. People are moving to West Virginia, growing our population in 2025. People are leaving California, New York, Virginia, North Carolina and 16 other states.

In the Star Wars movies, Jedi Knights were always warned about being seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. The Dark Side of the Force in Star Wars is a path fueled by raw emotions, such as anger, fear, selfishness, and hatred used to gain power and control. It offers a quicker easier route to strength than the light side but is addictive, corrupting and ultimately destructive to the individual. If we follow our Dark Side, the path of anger, fear, selfishness and hatred it may be the quicker road to what we think is success but ultimately it is the path to disappointment and destruction. The news is full of stories of people like Jeffrey Epstein who looked like they had it all. Wealth, power, a private island, a life of leisure, parties and ultimately prison and death.

I worked with and eventually for an individual who looked good on paper. He said all the right things, turned big profits and got promoted into upper management. I learned his secret when I took over as manager of one of his facilities. He kept salaries low and did the minimum of maintenance on equipment. His employees’ salaries were well below all of my other locations. The cost for lack of maintenance showed up after he left. Equipment broke down on job sites causing expensive problems. Tires, engines, transmissions and other critical parts needed to be replaced due to lack of maintenance.

We did preventive maintenance and raised salaries. Upper management couldn’t understand why we weren’t profitable like my predecessor. With my predecessor now in upper management it was difficult to tell my boss all the details. My career suffered for a period of time until we turned things around. Good people were hurt by my predecessor for his success. Like most others who follow the path of the Dark Side, his past eventually caught up with him and he came crashing down.

With evil and violence in the world there is plenty to get angry about. If we are not angry the major national media will tell us why we should be. It is important to know what is going on in the world without watching TV or being online 8-12 hours a day. The TV media love to play the most violent or emotional scenes over and over while they tell the story. Some stories online and in the media enrage us only to find out days later they are a lie. Should we listen to or read things by people we can’t trust? We choose what we watch and read. The late Hall of Fame Speaker and radio celebrity, Earl Nightingale discovered this truth, “We become what we think about.” What we hear and read impacts our attitude for better or worse.

The world is full of hatred. I know good Christian people whose hatred for the President has impacted their judgement and common sense negatively impacting others. We don’t have to like or agree with those elected to office. Though a struggle, I learned it is best to separate personality from policy. We can’t change the personality of those in office. Policy can be changed. We can find ways to work together if we aren’t blinded by hate of a personality.

Hatred isn’t limited to politics. We see it in the violence on our streets. Sadly, we see it in families where people haven’t talked to each other for years over some incident and refuse to resolve the differences. Jesus said in Matthew 5:44-48, “I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of the Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Aren’t even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

This isn’t easy. I asked my spiritual mentor, “How can we do this with all the violence, evil and hatred we see? “You can’t Greg. It is impossible. But what is impossible for man, is possible for God. Ask and he will help you.”