I dare to dream

This election cycle has been pretty much like all of 2020, a dumpster fire to put it mildly.  I am tired of it, my friends are tired of it, political pundits are tired (or so they say) but yet we all talk about it or are inundated with it.  Yes Facebook and Instagram (which is the same thing) I know when election day is and how to register etc.  

I have a love hate relationship with Facebook because yes I use it, yes I find it obnoxious in some ways, and yes I am amused by it.  I really could do without their pushing their agenda on me like with the previously mentioned voter info, I get it they want people to vote but how many times to I have to say go away before you go away?  This is like beating a dead horse and it quite frankly makes me bristle and do the opposite of what you are nagging me to do.

What Now, we get to tell people how to vote because of what now?

It has been amazing to me that groups of people feel like they can tell other people how to vote, and that if you embody certain characteristics you need to vote a specific way.  This happens all over the political spectrum, left, right, middle, center, whatever you want to call yourself and it is insanity.  Call me crazy because I thought we could decide what we wanted based on our personal beliefs and not because of the way we looked or what organizations or professions we belonged to.

Can't we be adults?

Sadly the answer is no based on things I have seen and read.  Seeing our Representatives, Senators, and President bicker and intentionally annoy each other is crazy, irresponsible, and childish.  They seem to be unaware of the fact that you can personally dislike someone and still be professional and work with them, and you have to work with them regardless of their competency.

There are plenty of people that I worked with in the corporate world that I found  disagreeable personally but they were competent at their job so I worked with them, you mostly park your feelings at the door and focus on the job and not the personal.  There were people that were personally agreeable and competent at their job, and sure they were fun to work with.  And lets also remember that there were personally agreeable and disagreeable people that were not competent at the job, you still have to work with them.  Our politicians of all sizes, shapes, colors, and beliefs should really remember this.

Do you agree 100% with your family 100% of the time?

It is a shame that just because some person has a different idea of how things should go, many people just flat out ignore all that person has to say.  This is absolute insanity.  Now I love Mr. Padawan 'to the moon and back' but even he and I are not 100% in lockstep in our beliefs.  (I mean seriously he thinks the American league is better than the National league, but I still love him.)  We are not all going to agree all the time, and it  should not be unheard of to say "I really don't like most of what person A says but on this one point I agree with person A."

Unfortunately we are in an environment that makes that really hard to do, and that is really sad.  It seems like many are taking the simple way out and just saying I don't like person B so regardless of what they say or do I am going to say that they are stupid, rather than admitting that sometimes someone you don't like has a good idea.

Honey vrs Vinegar?

"Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you." RBG

That quote right there is powerful.  That quote right there is important.  I have witnessed so many people fighting for things that they care about but they are fighting in a way that makes me want not only ignore them but to actually do the opposite of what they are fighting for.

So many groups that have moved past sarcasm and satire to mean spirited name calling and rebuking, that it makes me want to disconnect.  Demeaning groups because they don't want to solve the problem the same way you do, or because they are not sure what to do so they do nothing as they work out the problem in their own way.

I have a feeling that if we as a whole country were able to take a deep breath and realize that we all want the same outcome we simply have different ways of getting there it would do a great deal to heal our country.  It would be fantastic if we could understand that our country is amazing, flawed but actively working on it.  Our flaws do not make us less amazing, our flaws are part of us, they will be part of our history and some of those flaws are unspeakably ugly but they need to be shown.   

They need to be shown in context of the time, and then shown how much progress has been made to try to overcome those flaws.  We cannot erase the past, and we don't need to live in it but we do need to acknowledge it and move forward.  We need to focus on the reality of today, the progress we have made and the fact that we are continually making progress.