Political awareness and happiness: Can they co-exist?

Politics and Religion.

Those are the well-known off-limits topics for friendly conversation. And rightfully so because they certainly have the potential to do serious damage – costing us friendships and in some cases family relationships.

With politics specifically, I think there is a certain level of emotional charge that whether we choose to admit it or not, blinds us from the ability to see the other point of view, no matter how empathetic we claim to be. Religion is a little different,until you pull it into the political debate, upon which time it becomes a supercharged catalyst for an even more intense and often catastrophic argument.

I don’t profess to know why humans are so incapable of listening to difference of opinion, I guess if I knew that I would have the recipe for world peace, instead I am concerned with the answer to the following question….

Life is a serious of hard questions that help us learn and grow.

I believe that each series of years in my life comes with it’s own hard question and challenges me to answer it within the confines of my own life.

In my teens the question centered around one of my favorite Shakespearean tragedies: “Did Romeo love Juliet because she loved him or did he love her because of who she was?”

This question was answered when I met my husband and realized that true love is not an emotion to be allocated but something that overcomes someone so deeply that they can’t do anything else but express it.

Done and done.

As each question in my life arose and ultimately fell, the answer would be revealed and a new question would rear its ugly head.

The Million Dollar Question:

Such was the case with this political conundrum. Here I am, a person with truly passionate views on certain topics, with genuine concern for their outcomes- and yet I also pride myself on being a very positive person- one who is well aware of the magic that is manifestation and abundance.

How does someone who KNOWS without question that you bring about what you think about, reconcile this idea with the desire – no, NEED – to be the change she wants to see in the world?

I told you these were hard questions.

Day after day, I find myself wrestling with the fear that being ambivalent, or simply uninvolved in the political landscape is a level of complacency someone of my ethnicity can’t afford to have.

Yet then again, what good am I to my husband or my children if I am walking around in a constant state of anger and disdain? Am I doing anyone any good?

I still don’t know.

I know that the anger that builds up inside of me when I feel like injustice is happening is NOT something you would ever want to be able to bottle and sell. I seethe for hours at a time over transgressions I decided the offending party did to harm others. I ruminate on the pain that is being caused in the name of power.  I obsess over the idea that people are being disenfranchised and they don’t even know it. At the end of the day what good does it really do?

It doesn’t do any good. It just makes me sick.

Conversely, I imagine a scenario where I completely disengage from the discord altogether. I hide all political commentary from my news feed. I don’t engage in political conversation and I don’t watch the news. I challenge myself to operate on a higher level, to make the change from the outside in. Instead I empower others to see their potential and bring them to the level of awareness they deserve to have. They deserve it as much as I do.  I teach abundance and I create a community of people who know in the deepest recesses of their soul that they are good enough, strong enough, smart enough, and deserving enough to achieve their dreams.

Then nothing in the world can disenfranchise them or anyone else. They won’t have to depend on someone else to champion their cause, because they will do it themselves. They won’t need someone to speak for them because they will be shouting from the streets how blessed they are.

And as I write this and work this all out in real- time I think I found my answer.

What is my Legacy?

At the end of this life, what kind of legacy would years of worry and angst be for my children? What change is my discomfort making in the world?

What am I here to accomplish? Can I do it distracted? I think I know that answer too.

With so much more I could say and write on this topic (my college professors would be so proud) I will leave it at this:

When two warring ideologies are placed side by side you can’t really compare them. On one hand you have the idea that you must be abreast of everything going on everywhere – lest someone  try to attack your liberties. On the other hand you have the belief that you create your life with your thoughts.

If one exists than the other can’t. If you believe one, then you must have faith – and forsake the other.

And so ladies and gentleman, as they say on my favorite show, Shark Tank, for those reasons…..

I’m out.

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