Refresh

In this month of gratitude and thanks, we look at the word Merci as it relates to “thanks” in French, but has evolved to “mercy” here in America meaning compassion or forbearance. Merci comes from the Romans meaning ‘wages’, as in a favor. As human psychology would have it, whenever someone does a favor for us- we typically return the favor tenfold according to psychologist Robert Cialdini.

What does living mean to you? Are you living simply to survive? Are you living for fulfillment beyond basic needs? Are you building a legacy? Living doesn’t live on some linear idea as we’re all complex and varying in our ways.

In trying times, why do we sometimes make the decision to freeze, flee or fight? Perhaps it is because our backs are against the wall, there are too many opponents or we have no clue what to do. Whatever it is, it is believed to be based in fear and how we cope with that fear.

Lately, it feels like words or lack of them are holding just as much power as action and inaction nowadays. Here at RBKF, we took a special interest in words big and small- in hopes of growing and understanding how they can be used to advance and diminish our progress as a whole.

Freedom & Liberation never gets old, given it’s the crux of the American Dream. We have never had more opportunity to soar like our symbolic American Bald Eagle than we do now to shape what the American Dream means to us individually.