Skip to main content

On Election Day

I never could stand the gritted-teeth tones of Election Day coverage.

"Will she or won't she win, in light of the surge in negative ads?" "What will be the impact of fake Facebook groups?" "Is big money going to prevail?" "Can voters overcome the false claims that Trump is making, and choose for themselves?"

It's not so much the content, though there's plenty to be outraged about (and we should be). I'm against fake news, voter suppression, big money in politics, and falsehoods of every type.

It's just that on Election Day, it's time to make history, not read reporting on it. It's time to seize control over anxiety and DO something. Gather your loved ones and go to the polls. Talk about what matters. Then, tell them you love them.

You may be wondering: Where does kindness come in?

Only everywhere.

Bring a neighbor to the polls. Take donuts to the poll watchers and election judges. While you're at it, give your grandma a call, just because.

Stay off Twitter, in an act of kindness to yourself.

We'll all know soon enough.


Comments

Unknown said…
This is so lovely and so true!

Popular posts from this blog

All I want for my birthday is...

Have you ever had a bad day turn around because of incredibly small, yet memorable, act of kindness? Maybe a stranger smiled at you in the grocery line, or opened a door for you, or let you go first after a stop sign. Or perhaps you heard from an old friend, calling you just because. A hug, a genuine question about your day, or simply the gift of listening -- all of these acts have power. Rabbi Hillel* famously said, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?" There's so much that can be read into a quote like that, but let me offer this interpretation through the lens of kindness. Performing kindness (e.g. self-care) for yourself is a genuine form of kindness for the world. And likewise, acting in kindness for others is also a boon to one's own soul. In that spirit, I offer this request. All I want for my birthday (Oct 23) this year is to put a dose of kindness into the world. And I need your help. If

Do you have the resources to perform acts of kindness?

Last week, I found myself sitting in a fancy boardroom in midtown Manhattan. A group of about twenty well-dressed white men and two women were meeting with me to discuss matters of corporate strategy, for the nonprofit healthcare system I am consulting with. As we talked through anticipated state budget cuts to Medicaid and the difficulty of serving that program, I gazed out the window from time to time. Thirty-five stories below us, we could find the people who would be impacted by these decisions. Sure, this was only one nonprofit healthcare system among many. But collectively, we represented the decision makers, and others had to live by our decisions. There was no Medicaid recipient who would speak up for the program; there was no elderly person living in one of the organization's nursing homes would lend their perspective; there was no person from a homeless shelter who could say what they needed, what would help their situation most. It was seven o'clock in the eveni

Why don't we follow the teachings of the great thinkers who have come before us?

Do you ever pause from an act of creation and think, what's the point of this? Someone has already written a better poem or essay or blog post. Others have painted better portraits or crafted better knickknacks or knit better scarves. I can get a dress on Amazon for less money than I will spend on the fabric, and the craftmanship will be better too. Why create? I think this all the time. The logical conclusion is not an optimistic one: why do anything, because it's all been done before, and better, by others? In particular, to our point here, all the writing on kindness and love has been written and rewritten and translated and adapted for every age, every people. We have Moses. We have the Buddha. We have Jesus Christ. We have modern writers and gurus and leaders of all kinds. The teachings are there, sitting on our dusty shelves or buried deep in our subconscious. Have we listened? Have we truly understood these teachings from these great saints and le