Don't Take the Election Personally
How our votes are a reflection of our conditioning and our reality
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About two months ago, I began to notice Trump signs popping up around my new neighborhood. And not just one or two. It seemed like almost overnight, almost every other house had a Trump sign in their yard. Some had more than one.
My wife and I have lived in Massachusetts for more than 20 years now, but we had always lived in the reliably blue Boston suburbs. But this past year, we moved to Western Massachusetts, an area where political opinions are a little more diverse and can vary widely town to town or even neighborhood to neighborhood.
At first, I was a little ashamed of all of the Trump signs. I felt like maybe we hadn’t picked the right place to live, perhaps this wasn’t a safe neighborhood for our children.
I was surprised and disappointed that so many people would not only vote for Trump in private, but would publicly root for him. Hadn’t they seen the Access Hollywood tape? Didn’t they remember tear gassing protestors so he could hold a Bible upside down? What about January 6 and all of the criminal court cases?
The more Trump signs that appeared, the more uncomfortable I became. I had to really sit with that discomfort and ask myself where it was coming from. And then I realized, I was taking everybody else’s vote personally. And not taking things personally is an area where I’ve strived to do better.
I’ve written before about the incredible book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. The book sums up four pieces of ancient Toltec wisdom that when practiced can prevent unnecessary suffering in all of us.
One of the agreements is “Don’t take anything personally.”
According to Ruiz:
“Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about ‘me.’ During the period of our education, or our domestication, we learn to take everything personally. We think we are responsible for everything. Me, me, me, always me!
Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.
Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.”
As Ruiz suggests, we are all the product of so much programming, so much conditioning. It starts as a child in our own houses, continues through school, and can be influenced by our religious groups, our peers, the media we consume, and the social media accounts we follow.
It takes a lot of work to break out of those bubbles and look critically at the world. Some of us never even attempt it, preferring the comfort of our little cocoon. Some of us may peek our head out from time to time, but get scared and retreat. Very few of us are truly willing to do the work of deconstructing that conditioning and building something new beyond it.
I have shared my opinions on this election in the past, including my disappointment with Kamala Harris’s continuation of the Biden policy around Israel. Still those thoughts are only my reality, based on what I am observing and thinking.
Those realities are different for Palestinian-Americans, LGBTQ+ folks, young women, older men etc. I can share my thoughts in this newsletter, but I can’t take it personally when people don’t see things the same way as me.
Again, quoting from Ruiz:
“No, I don't take it personally. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me. Others are going to have their own opinion according to their belief system, so nothing they think about me is really about me, but it is about them.”
In my opinion, we are stuck with two incredibly imperfect choices. There’s a convicted felon who held a rally in New York last week that bordered on Naziism and there’s a career politician who seems willing to stay the course on a U.S. funded genocide in the Middle East, leading to the death of tens of thousands of innocent people. One of these two candidates will ultimately be in the White House in January.
I may not agree with either one at the moment, but I recognize that whomever wins, it will be because tens of millions of people voted in favor of the victor.
And I will do my best to not take those votes personally.
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Don't take the election, or anything, personally. Timely advice. Read this book years ago on my daughter's recommendation, but need to revisit it.