I’m so tired!
Not just physically tired. I’m tired of feeling sad and confused by how divided we have become. I’m tired of watching people who love each other pull apart because they see the world differently. Family. Friends. Neighbors. People we have known and loved for years. Let’s consider shifting our minds this fall!
Enough.
Maybe this fall can be a season of letting go. Not letting go of what we believe, but letting go of the idea that everyone we love has to believe the same things we do. I think we need a reset.
Social media and nonstop television coverage have become so loud that sometimes I wonder if we can even hear ourselves anymore. Everything seems designed to get a reaction—to make us angry, frightened, suspicious, or certain that someone on the “other side” is the problem.
Aren’t you exhausted by it?
I am.
And I don’t want to participate anymore.
I want to remember the actual people behind all those opinions. The sister. The neighbor. The old friend. The person sitting across the dinner table. The stranger who might see the world completely differently from me and still be a good human being. Different ideas do not have to mean broken relationships.
We talk so much about diversity, yet real diversity includes people who don’t think exactly like we do. We can disagree. We can have difficult conversations. We can even decide there are subjects we simply shouldn’t discuss with certain people.But we can still choose respect.We can still choose kindness. We can still stand up for one another.
And maybe instead of spending so much energy trying to destroy the people we disagree with, we could put that energy into lifting people up and actually solving some things together. One of my favorite Wayne Dyer thoughts feels especially important right now:
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
— Wayne Dyer
Maybe that is where my reset begins.
I can intentionally change what I give my attention to. I can stop feeding myself a steady diet of outrage. I can refuse to participate in the hate game. I can listen without immediately preparing my argument. I can love someone without requiring agreement.
I can choose people over politics.That doesn’t mean abandoning my values. It means remembering one of them: love. So this fall, I’m cleaning the slate. Less poison. Less outrage. Less us against them. More listening. More grace. More family. More friends. More laughter around tables where everyone may not agree.
It sounds almost too simple considering how messy everything feels.But maybe simple is exactly where we need to begin.We don’t have to wait for the country to change first.We can change the way we treat each other. I still believe there is something in us that wants unity more than division. Something that knows we belong to each other even when we disagree.
Let’s find that again.
Enough hate.
Back to peace. Back to love. Back to each other.
And, as always, still becoming.
— Debra Gabel
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