ARTICLE: Standing on Principles - What I Learned The Last 5 Years
I hope you all take the time to read some words about the lessons I learned these last 5 years and gain some inspiration.
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By Scott Armstrong | Rebunked.news | @RebunkedNews
Five years ago, in late May 2020, I made the decision to overcome my fear and self-doubt, buy a microphone, and start a podcast—even though I had no idea what I was doing. The experience since then has been incredible, and I’d like to share some of the key takeaways from it.
A lot of lessons have been learned over the last five years. A lot of hard truths had to be accepted. Many people were given the gift of sight and were able to see the world around them for the first time. A lot of choices had to be made.
Some of those choices cost people dearly. Some of those choices were very rewarding. When confronted with certain choices, some of us realized it wasn't a choice at all. We knew exactly what we needed to do without hesitation.
I have had many conversations with people trying to zero in on that one characteristic, that singular quality, the one thing that all of us share who refused to fall in line... Why is it that so many of our fellow humans, more often than not, the ones that we love and care about the most, all fell victim to the spell? Why was it that a very small percentage of us were fortified with the discernment necessary to recognize the evil that was descending for what it was?
I haven't been able to figure out what that singular trait is, however, the one unifying factor that we all share is that we proclaimed our principles, whether it was through a megaphone or silently in prayer, and we stuck to them. We stuck to them with such a feverish resolve that nothing could shake us loose from them. There was a tremendous amount of fear and uncertainty as we began to suffer consequences for holding on to those principles. But we discovered something amazing.
We discovered that while jobs, friendships, family members all fell by the wayside, we were growing stronger. We realized what things in our lives were just occupying time and space without any meaning. People showed their true colors.
Other people stepped out of the darkness into the light that we were shining. They, too, had a light of their own. Our flames combined and began to rage. We felt invigorated.
Suddenly our lives changed and acquired new meaning. We shifted our focus and attention onto things that were more pure and in alignment with our principles. We found new jobs or new hobbies that began to reward us financially.
All the while, we continued to be attacked and ostracized. Little did they know that each word spoken against us or each word of ours that was removed from the conversation continued to fuel us.
I remember very early on in the lockdown era, filmmaker James Corbett made a video saying something along the lines of "this is it. This is the big one. They are going to try and take everything. Draw your lines in the sand. Get together with your family and friends. Decide what you are going to do when those lines get crossed. And rest assured that they are going to cross all of them."
As we all saw, the lines got crossed. Sometimes we were confronted with the crossing of lines we didn’t even know that we had to fortify. I had another powerful realization in light of this. All of these encroachments were just offerings. I still had a choice. And despite that offering being packaged as coercion, at the end of the day, it was still just an offering. Nobody had to take it.
One of the most insidious aspects of the offering was their attempt to convince us that we were bad people if we didn’t accept the offering. As we move forward, they will use every trick in the book to deceive you into deceiving yourself that your choice has been removed.
The devil cannot lift a finger to assail a person, he has to convince you to harm yourself or others. It is all deception and lies. Psychological and spiritual attacks are what the forces of evil at work in this world use as their primary tools. We can recognize them for what they are, which takes all the power out of them.
In my previous life, I worked as an Outpatient Drug and Alcohol Counselor at an agency that had fully bought into the idea that all of its employees needed to receive an experimental mRNA injection as a condition of employment. My obstinance around the office ultimately led to my dismissal from that position. It was more than just refusing to accept the vaccine into my life, it was a total disregard for any policies that I felt infringed on what I knew to be true and violated my principles. It was a very scary time. I was almost calling their bluff, but ultimately, they let me go. I didn’t know what would happen next in my life, but as these things go, a new life unfolded before me that led me to where I’m at today. Had I not stayed true to my principles in that instance, I would still be trapped in that place and hating every minute of it.
I saw so many people that I care about who were on the fence, cave in and fall in line. I spoke to them afterwards. You could tell that they were in pain. I can't imagine the torment of knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway. There's always an excuse. There's always a reason. I have a lot of compassion for these people. They are the true victims in all this.
But I don’t feel like a victim at all. The simple act of staying true to our principles over a period of time delivered us to a world beyond our wildest dreams. A world that never would have been if it weren't for the fires that forged us. I would never dream of going back to the way things were before.
I learned so many valuable lessons through all of this. I learned that no matter what, when I know for a fact that I'm doing the right thing, even if I'm the only one in the world doing it, no matter how scary it gets, it will always deliver me to a better place than I would have been had I capitulated.
This is the resolve that will carry me forward. I can see the miracles of relying on principles in my life and those around me. Today I have the honor of surrounding myself with some of the strongest and most amazing people in the world. It is the sinister nature of the world that brought us together, and it was the sinister nature of the world that tested and purified us. We are infinitely more powerful now. Those behind the curtain didn’t count on this.
Remaining true to one’s principles is the act of living in integrity. My career as a Drug and Alcohol Counselor was preceded by my own personal journey of being freed from the bondage of substance use and living a life centered around recovery. It was my personal journey in recovery that helped me formulate an actualized version of myself, to find my true self, to feel whole again, or maybe feel whole for the first time. Rigorous honesty and integrity are core principles of living a program of recovery and I am grateful that those tools allowed me to be strong during very challenging times. I feel that the entire world could heal and become whole through deeply integrating and living a set of principles that align with integrity, honesty, compassion and love.
Looking back, I realize that it was faith that carried me forward. I didn’t know what was going to happen after losing my job, but I had faith that if I just did what I believed to be the right thing, everything would work out. And it did. This gives me the courage and strength to know that going forward, if I stay true to my principles, the reward outweighs the risk. If anyone finds themselves in a similar situation, practicing faith is a warm blanket that can carry you forward.
I wouldn’t have been able to do it alone either. I was grateful that I had spent a lot of time building and becoming a part of several communities of freedom-oriented people that shared my same principles. If you have not found your tribe, now is the time. Start meeting with other like minded people in real life, and you can become invincible. Your strength becomes their strength and vice-versa.
A few resources I like to recommend for finding other like-minded people:
The Meet-Up App (most groups are not aligned, but every now and then you find one!)
Also, the biggest suggestion I can make around the topic of community building is to start hosting your own meetups, particularly if you can’t find any in your area.. During the height of the Lockdown Era, myself and two other friends spearheaded the local meetups through the Freedom Cell Network and hosted our own meetups. If you go to these sites and see that there are no meetups in your area, it is now up to you to create a group or start advertising meetups yourself. If you build it, they will come, I promise. All you have to do is pick a spot (picnic shelter at a park, someone’s property, a restaurant, a food court, etc), make a sharable digital flier to advertise the meetup, pick a fun name for the group, and you’re off to the races! The Telegram app has been a fantastic way of maintaining the connections you make from those meetups.
I look forward to whatever is next without fear. All we have to do is continue to come together, build community, build trust within that community, find new ways to be of service to that community, acquire new skills, build new things and grow along the lines of love and freedom.
We don’t have to fight anyone, we just have to build. The principles that have guided us thus far will be the foundation, the friendships we have gained will be the bricks and the goal of a better world will guide us home.
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Great recap of your journey, Scott!! The Way Forward, Alec Zeck's website, also has a new membership that folks can join to find each other. It is monthly fee or $150 for a year. His vision is to help like-minded people find each other, create local community, stimulate growth and a core of strength. You may want to check it out to recommend it. So glad you are well conncted to your peeps down in TN! Thanks for taking the time to write an authentic account of your last 5 years!