Thanks? ... giving

Picture credit: Microsoft

Wow, what an emotional couple of weeks.  In the time leading up to the election, my daily mantra was, “it’s almost over … it’ll be over soon.”  It almost was a requirement to help me get through the day.  Once America voted, I thought all the stress and trepidation for the future would leave in a snap.  I was wrong.  Things seem to have gotten worse, if even possible.  Right now, this is a world where I feel scared and unsure of the future, where I worry that all the progressive steps we’ve taken forward to put things in place to help everyone succeed will wither away.

And then there’s this:  hateful people.  Everywhere.  I never knew there was so much hate.  I thought about this a lot before sitting down to write this.  I wondered if we didn’t start this by pitting ourselves against each other with this idea of left and right.  This year in particular has really seemed to divide us, and now the ideology of being liberal or conservative has become a bad word, depending on which camp you talk to.  Everyone who leans toward the left with their beliefs apparently is considered a whiny liberal that needs a participation trophy now.  Everyone on the right apparently wear the moniker of “racist asshole.”

Stop.  Just stop already.  Stop putting people in a box and labeling them because it’s easier to dismiss them and don’t want to listen or hear what they have to say.  This is what got us here in the first place.  Not only did we stop talking to each other, we stopped listening and trying to understand each other’s point of view.  You don’t have to agree with each other, but at least listen.  People are people, not liberals, delicate snowflakes, whiners, racists, assholes, rednecks … whatever label you’ve put on them. People have genuine concerns and fears … and I’m not talking just during a particular strange and stressful election year, I mean all the time.  When you put a label to them and stop listening to what they have to say, it feels like the ultimate brush off, a giant “fuck you,” if you will.  

Why do you think people walk around with banners and signs chanting, “Black Lives Matter?”  Because they have struggles and fears that people seem to dismiss and this is the only way they feel they can get their message across and to have people open their ears to hear them again.  Why do you think the masses came out in protest against the new President-elect?  Same idea … they want their voice heard that they are afraid and unhappy with where our country may be going and they don’t feel our new President-elect will have our best interest or intentions.  You may not agree, but that’s how they feel.  At least let them feel heard before telling them to shut the fuck up or go home and get off the streets.  Protesting has been around for a long time (how do you think the 19^th Amendment came to be?  Or the Civil Rights Movement?) and it will be around for many more years to come.

On this eve of Thanksgiving where we’ll be sitting down with family and spending time with each other, I give you this advice:  next time you see or hear something you disagree with, instead of resorting to anger take a moment and ask questions.  Open a dialogue with those that you don’t understand.  You might just learn something.

Through living, I learn

I’ve known for a long time that I believed personal faith and enlightenment could be found anywhere and not just by walking through church doors.  It was harder for me to grasp what that truly meant for myself and to come to terms with the idea that I didn’t believe in God and that Christianity wasn’t for me.  Of course years of ingrained Lutheran Church faith seemed to have planted the seed that I couldn’t and shouldn’t believe otherwise, but I finally allowed myself to grasp the ideology that it’s not a bad thing to not worship God or even believe there is a God.  After that admission to myself, I thought about what that meant for me because I still wanted to be able to find peace and/or faith in nature and inside my soul.  For that reason, I thought of myself as agnostic, not atheist, since I believed there was something out there to put one’s faith in.

It wasn’t until very recently that I discovered an interest for Taoism.  Dictionary.com defines Taoism as a philosophical system that advocates life of complete simplicity and naturalness and of noninterference with the course of natural events in an effort to have a happy existence in harmony with the Tao.  What drew me in about this school of thought is how the Tao is person and specific to each individual because it centers on what you as a person will do for enlightenment.  I sat down and had two ideas of my personal Tao right off the bat:  seek to understand before responding, and be me and let others be themselves.  A third one was added not long after that and states:  Report only what you see; with no personal inference.  Today, I added another one.

This morning, I had a conversation that was pretty politically charged with my dad.  He called and like always, I thought it would be a nice catch-up type of call.  Only, I made the mistake of asking whom he was going to vote for.  As I was asking it, the little voice in the back of my mind was saying, “Do you really want to know that answer?”  He gave me his response (I won’t keep you in suspense, he voted for Trump) and despite being written on sticky notes and posted on the wall in front of me, all of my personal Taoisms flew out the window.  After our conversation, which ended on a positive note after I apologized and we got off the touchy subject of politics, it seemed to be all I could think about.  Someone I respected and looked up to was making a different decision than I expected or wanted and I was really struggling with it.  Coming on the heels of another choice my daughter made earlier this week to allow someone injurious back into her life seemed to pepper the sentiment all the more.  

As I was driving to the barn to spend time with my horse in an effort to forget about my feelings, I thought about why I was struggling with my personal Tao and came to the realization that I will make mistakes and it will sometimes be difficult to live by the guidelines I’ve set out for my personal enlightenment and quest to be a good person.  I also need to realize that is okay and I need to accept it and move on because dwelling on it will do no one any good.  If I can’t accept it, I can’t move forward and try to do the right thing the next time something similar happens.

So, this is my fourth Taoism:  Know that you will make mistakes and struggle with parts of your beliefs – that is okay and you need to accept it.  After adding this to my repertoire, I decided to meditate to further relieve the stress I’m feeling when things aren’t how I expect them to be.  It’s a process and I am enjoying having something to guide me, but it’s not easy.  Nothing ever is.