Your Life, Your Way: An Introduction to the Foundation Forty Lifestyle

By Michael Morris

Many people living in this country are unhappy with their overall quality of life.

Michael Morris, a therapist of more than thirty years, knows that firsthand. He has helped thousands of people overcome emotional, psychological, physical, and other types of trauma.

The Foundation Forty lifestyle is a tool that provides guidelines to create a high quality of life—one that is in line with your best interests. Position yourself to:

• set in motion the dynamics of change for a happy and healthy life;
• move past the unfortunate lifestyle that has become a reality for most Americans;
• resolve disagreements and cultivate more meaningful relationships with others.

The author also examines the reasons why so many people are unhappy, noting that most Americans have lived with the horrors of war and terrorism their entire lives. This level of stress, however comfortable you get with it, reduces the ability of society and individuals to function at their best.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jun 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665724395

Michael Morris

A fifth-generation native of Perry, Florida, a rural area near Tallahassee, Michael Morris knows southern culture and characters. It is the foundation and inspiration for the stories and novels he writes. Upon graduating from Auburn University, Michael worked for U.S. Senator Bob Graham and then became a sales representative for pharmaceutical companies. As a sales representative, Michael decided to follow a life-long desire and began writing in the evenings. The screenplay he penned during this time is still someplace in the bottom of a desk drawer. It is when Michael accepted a position in government affairs and moved to North Carolina that he began to take writing more seriously. While studying under author Tim McLaurin, Michael started writing the story that would eventually become his first novel, A Place Called Wiregrass. The novel was released in April, 2002 and is currently in its third printing. A Place Called Wiregrass was named a Booksense 76 selection by members of the American Independent Booksellers Association as and is part of the southern literature curriculum at two universities. Michael's latest novel, Slow Way Home, will be released by Harper Collins on September 23 and his work can be seen in the southern anthology Stories From The Blue Moon Café II. Michael and his wife, Melanie, reside in Fairhope, Alabama.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 Michael Morris.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2438-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2439-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022909814

Archway Publishing rev. date: 05/20/2022

49312.png

N o o

ne can doubt the reality that the COVID-19 virus is very dangerous and potentially lethal. There is no doubt that there is a pandemic. To date, it is reported to have killed over 250,000 American citizens, but no one seems to know for certain whether it was the coronavirus itself or some level of comorbidity that caused some or many of those deaths. In the beginning, there were problems understanding the virus itself, its etiology, its signs and symptoms, how it was spread, and how it could be treated. There was so much misinformation and contradictory information by the mainstream media that everyone in the country felt varying levels of confusion. As time passed and the morbidity and confusion grew, fear had gotten a grip on just about every citizen in this country. As that fear grew, those citizens had their lives changed in just about every way.

According to the Pew Research Center on social and demographic trends, 60 percent of American workers are making less money than before the pandemic, and 25 percent have lost their jobs or had someone in their family lose their job; subsequently, they have had trouble paying their bills. By June 2020, 7.7 million people had lost their jobs and health insurance coverage. Kellogg Insight reported that 5.5 million family businesses have closed because of the pandemic. Some families lost family businesses that they’d had for generations. According to Forbes, by August of 2021, 57.8 Americans had to file for unemployment benefits. Most of those losses were experienced because of government-ordered shutdowns and government-forced closings, but not one government official lost a single paycheck or job-related benefit because of those shutdowns.

Several federal judges, most notably William Stickman IV of Pennsylvania, ruled that these state limits on gatherings violate the right to assembly in the First Amendment and the stay-at-home orders and business closings violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the equal protection clause. The ruling declared that even in the pandemic, the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do not forfeit their constitutionally protected rights.

Even in an emergency the authority of the government is not unfettered … The Liberties protected by the Constitution are not fair-weathered freedoms … In place when times are good, but able to be cast aside in times of trouble … The Constitution cannot accept the concept of a New Normal … the basic Liberties of the people cannot be subordinated to open-ended emergency mitigation measures … rather the Constitution set certain lines that cannot be crossed … It is the duty of the Court to declare those actions unconstitutional.

What’s worse is that it’s not the financial burdens that have harmed the citizens of this country the most. The psychological, emotional, spiritual, and behavioral maladjustments from anxiety, depression, isolation, suicidal thoughts, and fear have created a division in this country between its citizens that has not been present since the Civil War. Violent protests from citizens of different ideologies have needlessly cost this country billions of dollars in property damage and hundreds of lives.

And all age groups have been affected. Studies show that 81 percent of teens reported negative impacts due to school closings and 51 percent reported planning for the future felt impossible; 67 percent of college students say that planning for the future feels impossible as well and 87 percent say their lack of opportunities is a major source of stress. Reports show that 61 percent of adults felt they could use more emotional support. Thirty-one percent of Americans showed signs of generalized anxiety disorder in 2020 (compared to 8 percent in 2019), 26 percent showed signs of major depressive disorders (compared to 7 percent in 2019), and 36 percent showed symptoms of one or both disorders in 2020. Approximately 40 percent of Americans reported increased signs of substance abuse. The rate of attempted suicides is up 10 percent, in part due to the pandemic and government-enforced measures like shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. In general, the quality of life in America has seriously diminished due to the government’s handling of this pandemic and the media’s socially and politically biased coverage.

Saddest of all is the knowledge that this has been perpetrated by an extremely few wealthy people