Post-Election Advice That Can Alter Your Relationships
Hint: Be like Greg!
Photo by Courtney Hedger on Unsplash
Whenever there has been anything to work through in my life, ranging from a high school breakup to the death of my best friend, I have found comfort in talking about it and writing about it. The more painful and confusing situations have led me to create lyrics and poetry, while the more trivial situations resulted in countless hours of conversations, support and laughter with friends.
Getting it all out there and discovering empathy from others is healing in itself. This open mindset, consisting of sharing and learning, is an approach that many appreciate. It is why we spend so much time having conversations with others, reading experts’ columns, delving into books and having healthy debates with our peers.
We all want to learn, evolve and grow. So, we talk about death. We talk about heartache. We talk about suffering. We talk about goals. We talk about fear. We talk about dreams.
We talk about everything, until we realize that we can’t and that we probably shouldn’t have. Did we get too comfortable with one another? When did that happen?
The 2024 Election
I don’t remember any other time quite like this — a time in which our own nation was so divided. Try to blame it on a candidate, but you would be taking the easy way out and avoiding the truth. The truth is that we became wildly judgmental ourselves. We decided that if someone was voting for a certain candidate we could not date them … we could not have coffee with them … we could no longer consider them a friend.
Just today, I read a note on Substack in which a writer said her husband called family members to say they would not be receiving the usual Thanksgiving dinner invitation if they had voted for Trump. I couldn’t believe the supportive responses that followed. “Way to go!” people wrote. “Good job standing up for yourself!”
What? How many assumptions went into that decision to un-invite Trump voters (aka some family members!)? First, more than half of the nation voted for him. So, we’re not talking about a small group of outliers. Second, we don’t know the specific reasons why someone voted for him or why someone voted for Harris. Maybe those reasons are personal in nature and are ones that we can’t understand.
Maybe a mother voted for Harris believing her gay daughter would not be supported otherwise — maybe she felt the right would threaten gay rights. Maybe a different mother voted for Trump because her Jewish son couldn’t go to his university classes without hearing “death to Jews” chanted, causing him to stay in his dorm in fear — maybe she felt the left would not protect him.
Stop Right There!
The sirens are going off in my head right now:
Oh no, is my vote becoming clear to my readers? Will I lose friends or followers if they think I voted for Harris? Will I lose the respect of my family if they think I voted for Trump? Do I care?
Well, I do care, not because I am insecure. If I lose friends, followers or the respect of family members over my political beliefs, then those people clearly lack understanding and empathy. So, adios!
The reason I care is because I care about the future. I care about the health of our nation. I care about us being united.
It starts at home. It starts with our conversations with our friends, with our family and with our neighbors. It starts with listening. It starts with letting go of judgment.
And Then There Was Greg …
It’s time for my usual dose of hope and promise and endless optimism. Thank you to my friend Greg, who has been loyal to me for 40 years (since junior high) for providing me with those gifts this week. Your brief phone call did more for me than you know, even though part of the reason you called was for your own healing.
You called yesterday to check in with me after the election. As a liberal Californian, you had no idea the outcome that this Chicago mom hoped to see in this past election. Better yet, you didn’t really care. You just wanted to make sure I was okay. You wanted to hear my thoughts. You wanted to hear my beliefs, whether they were aligned with yours or whether they were polar opposite. YOU WERE OPEN.
Today, you left me a message saying we need to continue our conversation and that hearing from others has been therapeutic for you. You, Greg, said you have been soothed by listening to a wide range of opinions. It has helped you to understand why so many support Trump. It has also helped you to share a feeling of cumulative disappointment for many who supported Trump. You are able to feel both and still feel love and respect in your heart.
You can be disappointed and hopeful. You can be sad while also being happy that others are celebrating. You can feel encouraged and you can feel scared.
Can we please have more Gregs in this world? Can we have more people who can see the issues in this election are not black and white? Some people have been indoctrinated and lied to by their “trusted” media. Others have been misled by their own parents. And still others have done all of their research, all of their listening and still ended up with differing opinions than you or I.
Does that mean they are wrong? Does that mean only you and those who share your views can be right?
Of course not. It means we need to shut up and listen more.
Do Your Own Research
We need to pay attention. We need to turn off the news and turn on our empathetic brains. We need to read and listen to independent journalists. We need to watch actual footage of events in our nation and around our world. We need to listen to our children and their experiences at school. We need to call our friends, especially the ones with different backgrounds, challenges, views and perspectives, and truly hear them.
This is not the time to shut your holiday door on relatives with different views. This is the time to swing that door wide open and embrace them.
Greg thanked me for talking to him and said the calls he’s made this week have been so therapeutic for him. By engaging in honest dialogue with good people, he has found comfort. He found some solace by simply listening. He found understanding through conversation.
Perhaps he doesn’t even know this, but he also further solidified life-long friendship with me by providing me with so much hope through that brief yet critical phone call.
The dialogue, understanding, sympathy and common ground surround us all more than we are aware. Pick up that phone and embrace it.
Don’t run toward more divisive times. Instead, discover commonalities and shared goals. Discover optimism and hope. Discover friendship and love. It’s everywhere, if we can just tuck our stubborn thoughts away long enough to allow all that goodness into our atmosphere.