Learning lessons

 Yesterday was September 11, 2026, the 25^th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Yes, old news. And some of you have probably had enough after a full day of coverage of this on almost every television station and social media feed.

But as I flipped around all the different medias covering this, I noticed something that I hadn’t put my finger on until yesterday … please bear with me while I explain.

Flipping around all the U.S. stations – all were focused on the ceremonies in New York, Arlington, and the farm field in Pennsylvania – the locations of course of where each of those four hi-jacked commercial airliners crashed. Each very focused – and appropriately so – on remembering the more than 3,000 lives lost on that day as well as the hundreds that died from the aftermath of those events.

And the Canadian media outlets covered those ceremonies as well – and appropriately so as that was such a terrifying and horrific day. It must be remembered.

On that day I was in the office in downtown Windsor, Ontario – right across the river from Detroit. And looking out our north-facing window (Windsor is actually south of Detroit) we could all see the Renaissance Center – at that time the home of critical General Motors offices – and news was sparse – the search engines of the day like Yahoo and a fledgling Google were crashing from the whole world hitting them – and nobody knew what was going to happen next. Would the next target be the GM offices on the riverfront?

And while all of that was unfolding, the US shut down all air traffic in North America – which Canada quickly and immediately complied with. All planes in the air were ordered to land immediately.

And at those moments when the air traffic was shut down there were these 38 planes flying over the Atlantic Ocean – on their way to North America from all over the Eastern hemisphere. They were all told to fly to Newfoundland – that rocky island Canadian province seemingly floating in the North Atlantic off the eastern Canadian coast.

You likely know this story. Some 38 planes from all over the world landed in a tiny town with an international airport – Gander. A town (not a city) with a population of some 9,100 people. When those planes landed – all combined they held some 9,000 passengers. And the town of Gander and the even smaller little villages around it all opened the doors of their homes and the food in their cupboards very generously to those passengers – while all 18,000 were still in shock and horror of what happened in the lower 48 states.

They wrote many stories about this – about the fantastic friendships that formed - as well as a celebrated play called “From Away”.

Well, yesterday – after a morning of three somber and heartfelt ceremonies took place at ground zero, the Pentagon, and that farm field – a fourth ceremony took place in Gandar. Newfoundlanders referred to those passengers that landed as the “plane people” – and many of those passengers returned to Gander for this event, from all over the world with the majority being Americans from almost every state in the Union.

This ceremony also remembered and held tribute to those lost on that catastrophic day … heartfelt and humbly and earnestly. But – and here is the difference – they also celebrated the plane people and the townsfolk and the amazing bonds that they built that day as together they struggled like everyone else what had occurred on September 11^th in 2001.

And unlike those other three ceremonies – which after watching left me feeling sad and dwelling on the negatives of horrific aftermaths of terrorist attacks, the Gander ceremony revived my sprit in a heartwarming way remembering that while there are those few radical ideologists in the world to be wary of – people in general – from everywhere – are good.

It dwelled on the positive.

And I was re-instilled with hope again – and faith and trust – that good is stronger than evil can ever be. That there is more good in the world than evil. So much more.

That the good news is that the bad news isn’t all bad. If you look deeper than the headlines you will see the good.

At this moment in history, I think this is the biggest distinction between the United States and Canada. Americans (collectively) right now seems to dwell so much more on the negative and forget about all the positive, where as Canadians (collectively) identify the negative and acknowledge it, but they dwell on the positive.

You can see it now – in the way that Canadians are not rolling over in response to the incredible tariffs imposed by the U.S. on Canada. Canada is pushing back on three fronts – imposing our own tariffs on the U.S., making new trading partners around the world, and revising our infrastructure to reduce our dependency on our southern neighbor.

I think former Prime Minister Jean Chretien – now 92 years old – Canada’s prime minister when the 9/11 attacks occurred – the man who reached out to the U.S. asking “how can we help” – and the man who sent troops to Afghanistan when the U.S. went after the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden in response – said it the very best when he reminded us when speaking during the Gander ceremony …

“We bow to no one” … “do not mistake our generosity for weakness”.

And that about says it all.

Then the American Ambassador to Canada – Peter Hoekstra – hugged Chretien afterwards.

My Dad used to tell me this story quite often – when he saw the younger me mad at the world.

“There was a bear wandering through the woods when he came upon a hunter’s camp. No one was around and he smelled something good coming from a big kettle stewing over an open flame. The bear picked up the pot like all bears do by hugging the kettle.

And the kettle burned the bear.

And in the way that all bears defend themselves – he hugged the kettle tighter – and the kettle burned him more and more – until the bear finally dropped the kettle and ran away – blistered and scarred from the burns.”

Think of that kettle as negative thoughts. And when one has negative thoughts – it’s so easy to dwell on that. It burns you and leaves scars like that kettle.

Instead, embrace and dwell on the positive – dig in and find it. And hug it tight instead.

Like Hoekstra did Chretien.

These economic attacks from the U.S. administration in power today are intentional – like the bigger bully imposing their will on the smaller. And some of those punches hurt, and will be harder to recover from. Finally, the bully will grow weaker and tire and will go away with little or nothing to show from it. But the smaller grows stronger – having learned from the battle. And it adjusts.

One day – perhaps when this U.S. Administration goes away and is replaced by another – or perhaps even longer than that – Canada and the U.S. will once again grow closer. But Canada is learning their lessons from this battle, and you will never see this country ever again allow itself to be bullied.

Beware The Ostrich And The Bear

You all know about the Ostrich.

When the Ostrich perceives danger he sticks his head in the sand – to hide – believing that nobody else can see him.

But he is still in plain sight. In open view. Visible to all around him – save his head buried beneath the ground.

He thinks he is invisible.

He thinks he is safe.

He is in his "happy place".

Often when we think of the future … we only envision our happy place. Where all is well. Where no problems can be seen.

But often when we think about the present … we think about all the obstacles facing us at the moment.

We think about the insurmountable debts we owe.

We think about the people around us who seem to be causing us problems of one type or another.

We think about our jobs and the frustrations that our daily work prevails on us.

We think about the things around the house that need repairs. And convince ourselves that our home is falling apart.

And we come to the conclusion that life – at this moment – stinks.

Very seldom do we look at the current status of our lives with the same optimism we hold for our future.

Very seldom do we take into account all the good things about the here and now.

We dwell on the bad. We swim in the pool of negativity. We embrace it and we wallow in our own self-perceived misery.

And we feel sorry for ourselves. We seem to actually enjoy feeling sorry for ourselves.

Because nobody else could possibly have it as bad as we do right now.

The grass is always greener in everyone else's yard.

We convince ourselves that times are … bad.

There is an old story told by theologian Emmet Fox . I tell this story every chance I get to anyone who I see who has convinced themselves that everything is just plain horrible at that moment.

I tell it to people who only dwell in the negative moments.

And quite often I tell it to myself.

Because I am as prone to dwelling in the negative as much as anyone else.

There once was a Bear that was foraging through the woods when he happened to stumble upon a hunter's camp.

No one was at the camp – the men were all out hunting.

But the Bear smelled something good coming from a big black kettle cooking over an open fire. The Bear grabbed that kettle in his big old bear arms to get a better smell … and perhaps to eat the stew inside … simmering in the kettle.

But the kettle was very hot, and it burned the arms of the Bear.The Bear knew only one line of defense and squeezed the pot even tighter. And the tighter he squeezed the more the kettle burned.

Until finally the Bear could stand it no more and passed out from the excruciating pain.

You are probably asking yourself "So what does this story have to do with dwelling in negative thoughts?"

Well, consider yourself to be the Bear.

And consider that burning hot black kettle to be negative thoughts in your mind.

Had the Bear simply let go of the kettle, he wouldn't have gotten so badly burned.

When we dwell on the negative – our immediate response is to think about such things harder … and harder .. and harder … until it simply burns you, scars you, possibly even destroying you.

You have to let that kettle go.

This is not to say you become the ostrich , who sticks his head in the sand to hide from his problems.

Because then you are prone to let the problems destroy you as well.

You have to change how you approach your problems.

You have to change your approach from that of how bad everything is .. to an approach of "how can I make it better?".

For example – you can make a list of all your options you can think of to make the negative to be a positive.

You have to figure out how to make lemonade from the lemons.Yes, I know – I hate that cliché too.

But the funny thing about the clichés we hate is that a cliché becomes a cliché only because it's so true.

When bad things happen, you cannot afford to be the Bear who hugs the kettle – it will burn you too badly.

But you cannot afford to be the Ostrich with his head in the sand – or the problems you are hiding from will prevail.

Instead you have to sit down and figure out a plan of attack.

A business plan if you will.

So you can open up a lemonade stand.