The other day, I was reflecting on how tumultuous politics feels right now (and, in fact, has for the last decade or so.)
My reflections led me to make this flow chart on how to handle politics.
If you are anything like me, politics regularly feels really upsetting.
Sometimes we feel like we have to try to fix everything bad that is going on in the world.
However, there are so many serious problems, and no one person can be responsible for fixing everything or even any one thing.
The enormity of the world’s problems can sometimes make us feel like giving up on politics.
Or sometimes the unkindness with which some people engage in politics can make us want to fight with everyone. Or at least the folks who express markedly different political views than our own.
Fight or flight sometimes feels like our only response to politics-the-way-they- are-right-now.
But I recommend a third way.
The third way reminds us that all human beings–even in our worst moments–are precious.
Every human being–you, me, and everyone else–possesses the light of our capacities for love, reason, and imagination. (Thanks to philosophers Paulo Freire and Eric Fromm for this idea.)
You can think of this light as the light of God or of our highest humanity.
Right now in politics, we have temporarily lost sight of the fact that we have more in common than not. And we have forgotten that we can solve our problems through using love, reason, and imagination together.
But things don’t have to stay this way.
This flow-chart is a reminder of how we make through the difficulties we find ourselves in and find a way forward.
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