I need to be honest with you for a moment. This newsletter was unplanned. Typically I write my newsletters on Tuesday mornings, and fine-tune and edit them throughout the week before they are published on Friday morning. This week has been a little different. As I am sure you recall, this past Tuesday was election day. I went on about my business and wrote my typical newsletter... without giving the election much thought. However, after seeing the election results, and the responses from both sides, I feel compelled to comment on it.
We ALL knew that about half the country would be happy with the election results. Alternatively, we also knew that about half of the country would be concerned with the outcome. There is no way to avoid this. Unfortunately, it seems that there is no way that both sides could possibly wake up the next morning and be happy with the final outcome of the elections.
Regardless of whether you are happy with, or saddened by, the results, we must remember that according to the Epictetus, one of the great Stoic philosophers, "We cannot control what happens to us, we can only control how we respond." We did our part, and it was a very small part, but the outcome was determined by millions of other voters. My suggestion, regardless of how you are feeling after seeing the election results, is to respond with kindness and empathy to your fellow Americans. In this moment, choose to be a good person.
We, as a nation, need to choose to mend fences, rather than continuing to tear them down. The only way that that can happen is if we choose to reach out, to someone with an opposing viewpoint, with the intent of learning why they are so happy, or why they are so scared right now. We, as a nation, are allowing our elected officials and news media to tear our country apart when it is the fabric of our communities that seems to be the only thing holding us together. Let's choose to make that fabric as strong as we can by building more cohesive communities, regardless of our political differences.
Embrace opportunities to have face-to-face conversations with friends, neighbors, and family members who have differing opinions. Let's approach those conversations as opportunities to learn from them, rather than opportunities to tell them why their opinion is wrong.
We were all born with two ears and one mouth, we need to learn to use them accordingly.
