I made the colossal mistake of getting on Facebook last night after the election was called. Sweet land of liberty! You would have thought that everyone on there was standing on the edge of an abyss waiting to jump just after they got that one last status update in, because wo, the despair. Oh,with the threats to move to Canada (which I thought were amusingly ironic), and plans to stockpile ammunition, and look over there! It's the end of the world! I found myself sighing a lot over people's negativity. And I went to bed feeling kind of glum.
Because here's the thing that people fail to recognize. We all voted. We all researched and chose a guy and then we all went out and marked our ballots and got a sticker and then one guy won and one guy lost. And to that I say, hooray for democracy. It worked. If you always want to be sure of an election there are many countries who can help you out with that. So maybe the guy who won wasn't the guy you wanted. It's okay to be upset about that. But it's not okay to make this one moment the Great Harbinger of the End of Days - particularly on Facebook - because it is not.
So this morning I woke up determined to make myself a politically neutral zone. The kids came into seminary wanting to talk about it. I fed them brownies and changed the subject. At institute I made my office a negativity free zone. We could talk about the results, we just couldn't say anything bad about them, or gloat, if that was the case. Some kids left the office a little frustrated. But others came in and we spent some time telling corny jokes to each other and laughing a lot.
See, life continues onward, just as it always has.
6 comments:
I agree! Even in NZ we have been looking forward to the end of this election.
Hail to common sense!
I'm just glad I can watch TV without seeing anymore political ads for a few years. Blech. I like your attitude. I got together with some friends yesterday, and we talked about Vampire Diaries and learned to crochet (again), and if we could do that, clearly there's not an apocolypse on my front door. Also, one of these days I'm going to jump in the Miata and drive to California and drop by your office for brownies out of the blue. Thought you should know.
Amen and amen! Let's all high-five each other for being Americans.
I'm afraid I have to apologize. I was one of those status updates on Tuesday night. But in my defense, you should be around my extended family for a family gathering, all conversations lead to Obama. Such as, "We're out of pumpkin pie. I blame Obama." I can't take another 4 years of that! :)
But I totally agree with you. America rocks! I woke up on Tuesday morning and sang in the shower at the top of my lungs, "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free..." I'm pretty sure the neighbors heard. You would have been so proud of me.
The problem with America is the Americans. And I voted for a girl.
Post a Comment