Hangover after election?

Each election has its winners and losers. Some handle losing well and some create stories in their head of a scary future.

     The two party system used to work far better than it’s working now. It seems with each election we go further and further to one extreme. As one party governs it ignores the will and desires of those in the other party. So much so, that when election time comes the anger of the ‘out’ party spills out creating more separation. It is as if a rubber band is stretched further to the right, then further to the left, then further to the right, and eventually, it will break. Has to.

     You can’t govern just half of the people.

     I believe the two party system is on its last legs. Neither party has a corner on truth, or correctness, or holds the only solutions. When we stand with one party, thinking only this party is right, only this party is good, and criticize the other party as wrong, evil, and bad, we hurt the whole country. It is like a dysfunctional marriage, with each partner insisting the other accept and believe like them. Hearts are closed.

     We’ve been so blind to the abundant possibilities of what can be and what solutions are possible.

     The pain caused by having your candidate lose may be from one of these reasons:

1) You are attached to your story about how things should be. Attached to one way of solving a problem. In Buddhism, attachment is the cause of suffering. What if we weren’t attached to one outcome?

2) You don’t like change of any kind. It's upsetting, and it feels like the comforting familiarity is gone.  

3) You’re projecting. Projecting all that is good on one candidate, or one party and all that is bad to the other. It blinds one to seeing how each candidate, each platform, has positives and negatives.

     I see a future where more groups will arise with more of a unifying message and a willingness to listen to all views. And when that happens the extremes that had been created by the viciousness and anger will subside. The different views will be naturally modified, and hearts will be held open to one another.