Time for sharing a little reflection, again

With another election season upon us, I am noticing a couple of differences from the person who wrote about their state of mind around the same time years ago, such as a few extra grey hairs, wrinkles and an evolved sense of self. Similar to a lot of us, I am carrying a large bag of mixed emotions and feelings. Anxiety, indifference, anger, responsibility, gratitude and hope to be named. I am sure, if combined with everyone else’s set of emotions and feelings, the intersection will cover every possible adjective available in the dictionary. I try to picture a Venn diagram or a word cloud displaying all of it and it gets very crowded for my own comprehension pretty quickly.

Jumping forward to digging through the aforementioned bag of emotions, I’ll start with anxiety. I am anxious because I have no clue what the outcome would be. I try to be realistic and remind myself that the outcome and a change to repair a broken system or status quo are not mutually exclusive matters. My personal values, upon reflection, align well with one side’s platform and naturally I root for them to win. However, based on my personal experience, life still goes on either way, but the question that keeps arising is whether things will change for the worse, better or remain the same, regardless of where their trajectories are heading. Typical follow-up questions include:

• how will life look like?
• will my loved ones’ and everyone’s safety, and safety net improve?
• how do I contribute and be helpful?
• how do I refrain from being a cynic?

 It’s nerve-racking and, at times, stressful!

Next up is being indifferent to the SHITSHOW comprised of debates, ads, he said / she said / they said, and gotchas. As a matter of fact, I try to do my best to avoid it all and act like it is not taking place. I go back to the simple principle of ‘I think, therefore I am’. I am able to make sense of my surroundings and reflect on the facts to make decisions for myself. I do not need a WWF war of words and smack downs to help me make up my mind about any matter. I continue to ask myself when and how determining such serious matters that affect masses of people and their well-being had to be presented in some reality TV format to get engagement and following. However, I understand the complexity of finding time to research and reflect and get to a conclusion, buoyed by the appeal of simplicity and relatability exhibited by the aforementioned format. In fact, I am very empathetic to those who are going through the conundrum. I just wish, as I told a friend of mine recently, that there is a simple way for everyone to get informed on what really will maintain and uplift their purpose in life, their loved ones’ and humanity in general, rather than questionable and unsubstantiated narrative, noisy rhetoric and unproven fear of anything and everything that one is not familiar with. I have theories of how we got here, and could talk about it for hours, but will spare you.

Anger is the next feeling I typically arrive at. I am angry at the number of lives lost we have witnessed over the past few months and continue to see, to the point where it is brain numbing. Hundreds of thousands of fatalities worldwide and counting. How could we, as an “advanced” species, allow something so devastating to happen? Why does the response of most of those in charge continue to be so lacking of competence and direction? Why do we (regular folks) continue to debate the measures to curb the spread as we watch the numbers tick upwards on a daily basis? Why haven’t we learned anything from history and similar catastrophes? So many questions that lead to me to question my designation above of our species as an “advanced” one. Are we really that advance, or is it just a level plain with our planet cohabitants, including rocks?

Currently, I have a great sense of responsibility to two matters that I have control over:

1. casting 1 vote for all the possible candidates on my ballot
2. further contribute to an elections process to help preserve a democracy

I voted for the first time in my life, 8 years ago and it’s something that I truly cherish only for the mere fact that it has counted and will continue to count towards something that is bigger than me. Comparatively, not a whole lot of world citizens could be a part of either of the above points. I was there at one point and will never take it for granted, never ever, never ever ever!

Lastly, gratitude and hope occupy a big space in my feelings bag. I am grateful for being healthy and able to maintain a simple but purposeful life. I am grateful for my family and friends, who contribute to pulling me back to equilibrium every time I get shook or uncertain, by simply being there. I am hopeful that they will be around for eternity to give me the chance to be there for them and help make their lives complete as they have done for me. I truly believe that if each one of us starts with that context, through proven or unproven phenomena such osmosis, or the ‘6 degrees of separation’ theory, we could make things trend in the right direction, for us and everyone. That is my hope and my purpose in life. What is yours?

“Everything will be okay in the end. It it’s not okay, its not the end”, John Lennon