Tell me what you think about the following:

What has four letters, sometimes has nine letters but never has five letters.

Don’t know what to think about the above?

Here, let me put it another way:

What has 4 letters, Sometimes has 9 letters but Never has 5 letters.

Now, when you read the statement the first time, how many of you were thinking it was a question and then was trying to think what could have for letters and sometimes has nine letters but never has five letters?

How many of you have figured it out now?

Notice that even though the sentence starts with the word “What” it does not have a question mark at the end of the sentence. So, what you read was really a statement, not a question.

If you still don’t get what I’m saying, let me put it another way:

What: Has 4 letters

Sometimes: Has 9 letters

Never: Has 5 letters

Now, do you get it? It’s all in the perception of what you are seeing and how you choose to interpret the facts set before you.

Monday, September 11, 2017, is the 16^th anniversary of what we in America call 9/11. It is a day that most Americans can remember with distinction where they were when the events at The World Trade Center, The Pentagon and the crash at the field in outside of Shanksville Pennsylvania, That day, America lost 2,997 people to 4 terrorist attacks.

Yes, the events that happened that day were horrific. But, and I don’t mean any disrespect to the families who lost loved ones because of these cowardly attacks, what really changed in America?

The answer is “Our Perception.”

According to the National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 63 Number 3 Dated July 27, 2015, entitled Deaths: Final Data for 2011, there were a reported 2,515,458 resident deaths registered in the United States. And the top 10 leading causes of death for that year were as follows:

1. Diseases of heart (heart disease)
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases
4. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries)
6. Alzheimer’s disease
7. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes)
8. Influenza and pneumonia
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease)
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide)

If you notice that Terrorism is not listed on this list it is because that while Terrorision is evil and does indeed kill people, not a lot of people are affected by that act. In fact, you are more likely to die from one of the above 10 related causes of death than you are from a terrorist attack in the United States.

And yet, after all the media coverage that was thrown at 4 isolated events on 9/11/2011, what has really changed? America still goes on. Like I said, in 2011, we had 2,515,458 resident deaths registered in the United States,

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) reported that in 2015 (2016 & 2017 reports were not available) we had 2,626,418: An increase of 110,960 American deaths for just that year alone!

2015 leading causes of deaths and death amounts were as follows:

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

1. Heart disease: 633,842
2. Cancer: 595,930
3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 155,041
4. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 146,571
5. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 140,323
6. Alzheimer’s disease: 110,561
7. Diabetes: 79,535
8. Influenza and Pneumonia: 57,062
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 49,959
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide): 44,193

If you take the combined causes of deaths from Heart Disease (633,842) and Cancer (595,930) you get a grand total of 1,229,772 who died in 2015 from those two diseases alone. And if you divided that by 365 days in a year, you see that 3,369 people die EVERYDAY here in America from those two diseases alone. That’s 372 more people than those killed on 9/11.

Now, look at the last cause of death for 2015: Intentional self-harm (suicide) 44,193 Americans died at the result of taking their own lives. Now spread that out over a 365 day year and you see that 121 people committed suicide EVERYDAY here in America.

And yet, we hear nothing about it on our TV’s.

We read nothing about it in our Newspapers, Magazines or Tablets.

Yet, the media keeps us focusing on isolated events vs the ones that are going on every day under our noses, and we are oblivious to it. That is unless it hits you or a loved one.

Our media is like a magician. It gets us the viewing public to look at what is going on in one hand, when the real action, or trick if you will, is going on in another.

You know what really, really changed on September 11, 2001?

Nothing.

People still got up to go to work. People kissed their loved ones good bye as they went to work. They toiled at jobs they either loved or hated. They ate lunch that day, finished up their work day and went home. Marriage proposals were made and some were broken off. People cried at the birth of their next child and people cried at the loss of a loved one. The way we lived our lives never really changed on September 11, but we let the perception of how our lives changed over 4 separate terrorist attacks and the constant fear mongering by the media.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m both sad and mad as Hell over what happened on September 11, 2011. Those who committed the cowardly acts I hope are roasting over an open spit in the deepest bowels of Hell and those who planned said terrorist events should be caught, brought to trial and immediately sent to join their comrades as General George Patton once said: “in the flaming neither region.”

9/11 is a solemn day here in America. A day where we remember we were suckered punched by a group of extremists who took the lives of 2,997 people who did nothing to them and whose only sin was getting up out of bed and living their lives. But let us not take our eyes off our owns lives and the problems we face here because the media seems to think that “Their Perception” of what is going on is more important than “Our Perception” of what is important to us.

So, as we go to work on Monday and hopefully have a moment of silence for all of those victims and first response personnel who died that day, let’s also take a moment to remember that it is OUR PERCEPTION of what is important to us that gives us the drive to carry on. It is OUR family, OUR friends, OUR faith that we want to love, protect and cherish. NOT the agenda or “The Perception” of the talking heads we see on the news or read in our papers, magazines, and tablets.

YOU control your perception, don’t let THEM define it for YOU.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled life, already in progress.