To all distraught fellow citizens, and to all who are glimpsing doubt about the actions of the newly installed administration: What is happening in our country is no longer a partisan struggle. As long as it is framed as R’s vs. D’s, or “the current administration” vs. the administration we want(ed), we will not get to the heart of the matter, and certainly not to a solution. This is so much bigger than partisan pendulum politics.
The solution is actually simple (but hard): To let go of the anger and finger-pointing and name-calling and hand-wringing, and just do the next right thing. We can take all our strategy lessons from the Stoics and the Buddhists and the Quakers and the pacifists and Marshall Rosenberg (nonviolent communication) … and whoever else is rightfully added to that list. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, hate is never overcome by hate but by love. “No one ever does evil intentionally,” Socrates taught.
To the extent we adopt and internalize that idea, it will free us up to know what the next right things are for us to do, individually and collectively. That is our way forward.
