For complicated reasons – some of them my own doing – I was pretty unhappy growing up. So I’ve explored how to heal my anxieties and sorrows, and grow in resilience, happiness, and inner peace. My work as a therapist and writer – such as in almost all of these “JOTs” – has also been focused on that individual level. That focus is certainly useful and legitimate.
Still, it is also true that large-scale economic, cultural, and political forces impact individual health and well-being. For example, poverty is a major source of mental health issues – including for nearly one in five American children.
So it’s appropriate to consider how these large-scale forces affect you personally – and what you can do about it. And what you can do to help others who are also affected.
You could be worried about the economy, the storms and droughts of climate change, brutal wars, or the rise of authoritarianism. You could be deeply concerned about the world that our children and theirs will inherit.
Depending on the latest news, it’s natural to feel stunned and powerless. And to be flooded with outrage or an overwhelming sorrow. Still, even in the midst of all this, you can be mindful: aware and present, and not entirely swept away. Then at some point you take a breath and look around and try to figure out what to do.
One thing to do is to vote. We vote in lots of ways. Besides what we do at a ballot box, we offer a kind of vote – a choice with consequences – when we sign a petition or send money to a cause or candidate. In a broad sense, we vote when we speak up for anyone who is being mistreated. Inside your mind, you cast a kind of vote when you take a moral stand. The root of the word, vote, is vow: to make a commitment, to claim whatever power you do have – and use it.
Someone might say, “It doesn’t matter. Any single vow, any single vote – any thought or word or deed – is a drop in the ocean.”
But every choice matters to the person who makes it. Knowing that you are committed to something and have kept your word to yourself, that you’ve walked your talk, feels good in its own right. Plus it’s a powerful antidote to helplessness and despair.
Further, when others see you taking action, that can inspire them to do the same. And the gradual accumulation of many little efforts, drop by drop, can become a mighty stream. I came of age in the late 1960’s, and in my lifetime there’ve been major improvements in civil rights, environmentalism, gay marriage, and women’s rights. These changes have been the result of countless “votes” that have added up over time.
Of course there is still a long way to go. The votes we cast – with our ballots and words and deeds – are no guarantee of success. But if we don’t vote again and again, what is guaranteed is failure.
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Vote for Facts
Being foggy about facts is like driving a car with your eyes closed. Some say that we can’t really know the truth about big things like national governments or climate change. I think that’s lazy at best.
The basics are usually pretty easy to see. Who is getting richer and who is getting poorer? Are glaciers melting? Who is strengthening democracy, and who is weakening it? Ten or twenty minutes online with some credible sources will tell you a lot, particularly when they are consistent with each other. Depending on the issue, you can find good summaries for the general public from university institutes, scientific and professional organizations, nonpartisan nonprofits, and Wikipedia. Major news organizations such as Reuters and the Los Angeles Times are not perfect, but they do compete with each other for accuracy and when they fall short, they usually make corrections; reading their critics is also helpful.
The facts matter. We are intimately affected by real events both in the hallways of our homes and in the halls of power. In a family, company, community, or country, people who lie in order to hold on to their power de-legitimize it. At any level, any person or group that punishes truth-tellers or uses disinformation to crowd out the truth is attacking the foundation of any healthy relationship.
Turn in Your Ballot
Voting is about participation – and participation itself is not partisan. I have my preferences, but fundamentally I don’t care how people vote, I just hope they’ll vote at all. Yet in US Presidential elections, about two in five people do not bother to vote – and young people, 18 to 25-year-olds, are even less engaged, although they will most inherit the effects of global warming, wealth inequality, and other serious problems. Turnout in American congressional and local elections is even lower. Voting is sacred. As Representative John Lewis wrote a few days before he died: “Democracy is not a state. It’s an act.”
Our votes matter. In 2016, for example, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million people – but just 78,000 votes in three states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) put him in the White House. (You can be glad about this if you supported him or dismayed if you didn’t, but either way it’s a fact showing how much individual votes add up and matter.)
So make sure you are registered to vote and informed about your choices – and going to the nonpartisan Heal Democracy website is an easy way to do this.
Mail-in balloting is highly secure – and because there is a paper trail, it is actually more secure than electronic voting machines and less vulnerable to foreign interference. Whether in person or by mail, many studies have shown that actual cases of voter fraud are extremely rare, and never enough to sway an election. What does sway elections is voter suppression, when one political party makes voting as difficult as possible for its opponents. The only way to defeat those tricks is through high levels of voter turnout.
Confront Bad Faith
It’s one thing to argue about politics in good faith. Then there is a shared interest in the actual facts, and a commitment to basic fairness: if you shouldn’t do something, well, I shouldn’t do it, either. Telling the truth and playing fair are the foundation of all relationships – from two people in a couple to millions of people in a country. Lying and cheating are not tolerated in sports or business. So why do we put up with them in our politics?
What you do will depend on the situation. You might ignore some troll on Facebook, or gently ask a friend with different views if you could talk about politics in another kind of way.
Or as soon as it’s clear that the other person has zero interest in a good faith dialogue, you might say something like: What’s your real purpose here? You keep saying things that are untrue or unrelated to what I’m talking about. You’re just trying to change the subject instead of dealing with what I’m saying. Even if you don’t get anywhere with that person, you’ve stopped wasting your time, plus you might have a good effect on others who are watching.
Stand up for Others
I remember being eleven years old and the visceral shock of going to a gas station’s bathroom in North Carolina in 1963 and seeing three doors labeled: Men . . . Women . . . Colored. My life has had its difficulties, but as a white man I’ve been advantaged in many ways. I look at my home and my savings, and know they are the result of three kinds of things: personal efforts, luck (good and bad, including the genetic lottery), and advantages that operate by disadvantaging others. Some fraction of what I own comes from current and historical discrimination against women, people of color, and other marginalized groups. That fraction is not 100% but it’s sure not 0%. Whatever it is, it’s ill-gotten gains.
Most people don’t walk out the front door planning to disadvantage others. This is about sorrow, not shame, and compassion and a commitment to justice. For those of us who have benefited, as I have, from systemic advantages, I think there is a particular responsibility to do what we can. As we vote with our thoughts and words, we can listen, and feel the weight of what’s being said by people who have been disadvantaged, and try to learn and not assume, and recognize impacts on others (whatever our intent may have been), and find the sincere desire to be an ally, and keep trying to be a better one.
Vote for Yourself
Deep down, we each have the power to see what we see, value what we value, and make our own plans. It may not be safe or useful to say this out loud. But we can always say it to ourselves.
That’s a kind of vote. No matter what happens out there in the world, we can always vote within our own minds. It’s like we each have an inner voting booth. We can take refuge in the sure knowing of what we do there.
I draw guidance and strength from people who have faced vastly greater hardships than I have, and who speak of what we can do inside ourselves with the authority of their own suffering and pain. Most of these people are not famous, and still their words have tremendous weight. Some are well known, such as the Dalai Lama. I remember watching an interview with him in which he spoke of the terrible mistreatment that Tibetans face in their own country. In his face and tone and words, he expressed that irreducible human freedom to make our own choices, to claim the power that we do have, and to use it, and use it well, with compassion for all beings.
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