Aarrg!! Can’t wait for it to be over!
Politics! Politics! Politics!
Why are we so cranky? So quick to snap at a family member or co-worker when the conversation turns to the election coming up in the next weeks? At least we can be grateful that the presidential debates are over and we just have the media stuff to wade through!
Of course each of us on any side of a political perspective believes that we are right. And it’s somewhat difficult to understand how the other side can’t see the rightness of our side.
But I do know that my political perspective evolves out of my life perspective, as does theirs.
Someone who is gay is going to have a different perspective than someone who is straight. Someone who is deeply religious is going to have a different perspective from someone who is not. Someone who was raised one way will have a different perspective from someone raised another way.
We have all experienced life differently. That is a truth that can’t be changed. How then would it be possible for everyone to agree on what or who is best? For what is best for me isn’t necessarily best for you!
Why then do folks engage in political “discussions” (which are really no more than excuses to try to win someone over to our side?)
Why do they post rants on Facebook or make vitriolic comments about candidates?
Why do some folks try try to make other people feel stupid, shallow, unenlightened, or misguided about their choices?
Just as we just can’t be talked into or badgered into changing our viewpoint, neither can they.
I’ve read that as humans, we tend to decide with our emotions and then justify with our logic. Probably true!
And, even worse, often we end up judging someone’s overall character by their political persuasion. That is so sad. Because people are multi-faceted and interesting and have so much more to offer than their political beliefs.
We should make the effort to stop talking and just listen. Really listen to the candidates and what they are saying. Really listen to the folks around us. Really listen to our heart and what it is telling us. And when someone insists on talking politics, just listen and hear their perspective without lining up our counter-argument.
For most Americans, it feels like there is a lot at stake with this particular election-the state of our economy, our place on the world stage, the hope of a better future for our children.
But the day after the election, we will wake up and everything will be exactly the same as it was the day before.
We will have the same relationships. We will be working with the same people. We’ll be exposed to the same connections on Facebook and Twitter.
- In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.
- Robert Frost poet (1874 – 1963)
The beautiful thing about this country is that we are free to bring our personal perspectives to the political table and make a choice about what we believe is best. And then we have the freedom and the opportunity to join together and move forward, making the best out of the way things turn out.
Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. John Wooden
What do you do to make the best of things?
What do you do to move beyond the emotion generated by your perspective? What do you do to create your energy and forward motion? What choices do you see as available? Please share. We all can use all the ideas that all of us can generate!
6 Comments
Well, Pat, for starters I gave up having political discussions for the most part – even with someone who agrees with me. But I most certainly exercise the right and privilege of voting towards whatever change I hope can happen. Then I just back off and adjust as needed to the new reality. We all have our strengths and others have the activism gene where I don’t. It’s always my choice how to act and react.
More importantly it seems to me, is to daily act on my basic beliefs. This can be something as simple as being kind to someone, allowing a car to move in front of me, giving encouragement to someone having a rough day, going for a walk with a neighbor, listening. Doing these things doesn’t allow for much room for the negative energy or angst. And it certainly doesn’t include trying to make someone else see things my way on anything. Somehow trying to change another seems rather arrogant anyway and would be a very frustrating way to live.
Just looking around – I live in the woods, after all! – is enough to release an awful lot of negativity. This world is a wonderful place and it abounds with all good things.
Fay,
Very thoughtful response! Thanks so much for sharing with us.
I think your living consciously in the moment, day by day, is a lesson we could all learn from. It sure beats that “ain’t it awful!” mind set of many, as well as the “doom and gloom” of those deciding that they know what the future will be.
What a great blog Pat!! Fay I agree with you wholeheartedly and yes, it does seem arrogant to try to change someone……….after all who says I’m always right??
Tish,
You’re right-we’re not always right even though we may think so or hope so! Everyone else has the same possibilities of being right as we do. After all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day!
A wise man once told me, as I struggled with being right & with knowing what was right, “There is no right. There is your right. And my right. There are the rights of others. The same with wrongs. So long as you do not allow your rights and wrongs to harm yourself or others, you are free to act upon them. So long as others do you no harm with theirs, they are free to act upon them. Only in this way can we truly come together as a people with differences and maintain the ability to create new and beautiful and successful things out of and because of – differences.”
I appreciate your comments! Who knows when we decided we had the right, the obligation, to judge others as right or wrong. But, we can probably remember in the dim recesses of our own past, when we were adamant about being right only to later discover we weren’t! Hindsight is probably good to wait for, before proclaiming our rightness!