Just the mention of “politics” raises one’s heart rate. But rest assured, this article is about how to decompress from the war of politics.
I had my annual phone call with a dear childhood friend recently. Our usual catching up on things and how life is going was clouded by his upset of having lost so many friends through disagreements on which side is completely wrong and evil for their views.
Having just been on Facebook, he was so stressed out it wasn’t funny. He expressed that his quality of life had dropped from what has been happening all around us. Sound familiar?
With the volatility of social media daggers flying back and forth, and so much hatred going around willy-nilly, it may seem like there’s nothing anyone can do to help our country to exhale.
A Possible Solution?
There has always been a rift between political parties, but it has grown substantially over the last 3 years and emotions have gotten out of hand.
It’s important to remember that for anyone to get very upset about something, they have to be passionate. They have to love it so much that they just lose themselves to lower emotions because someone dared to go against it.
This brings us to how we can look at anyone who disagrees with our own views and help lessen the tension that can so quickly get out of hand.
What happens is when we listen to the news and go on Facebook or Twitter to face the ongoing argument, we immediately start to feel worse; and it’s a fast dwindling spiral from there. Any real communication degrades into a screaming match of who’s a bigger fool.
Not only has your day been ruined, you’re now really mad at the world—especially at those “idiots on the other side”. But wait a minute, a few months or years ago, these were our friends! What the hell?
It has gotten so bad that many of us don’t even want to have a holiday dinner with friends or family because of the tension and serious potential for a big blowup or just not having a good time.
But this article isn’t about a reason to be angry. It’s about how you can destress yourself and get back to feeling better about life again. It involves you personally and those you interact with.
First, understand that the hatred you feel for anyone else is because you’ve been told that “they are the enemy” and “they are dangerous to your self-preservation”. This is how you pit a country against itself.
I have no question that if I were in danger, you would come to help, and I would do this for you. This is because that is who we really are as Americans.
It is natural as humans to have admiration for others. It is unnatural to hate.
Hatred has to simmer and stew with lies about the other in order to overtake our true identity as a cohesive civil people.
Here is What You Can Do
Here is some truth about the people you may be hating right now because of their views:
If a natural catastrophe were to happen in our country today, we would all set aside our differences and band together. That’s proof the continental divide we have today has been created and we’ve all been duped.
The thing to do is:
-
lessen your time on social media,
-
immediately stop reading posts that upset you,
-
cut down watching the news, especially those reporters who contribute to the problem by reporting sour opinions,
-
and most of all… realize just how much anyone who starts to argue with you about our country or their side actually LOVES our country just as much as you. That is something to admire in them. Something to respect about them.
So the next time you either see an argument or get into one yourself, just tell the other person how much you admire their love for our country, and walk or click away.
This is how we can do our part in closing the great divide we have as a country and stop the forwarding of hatred. This will allow us all to relax about it and put our attention on more positive, productive things.
Understanding that we are not our own enemies is what’s important. We are the United States of America. And the qualities we all possess, like understanding, empathy, compassion and respect are greater and more powerful than hatred, IF we exercise them regularly.
We need to uphold the humans rights of everyone, show respect for every president in office, respect each other as a nation and set a good example to the world, who is watching our every move.
We, as a country, need to break the chain of hate. The media needs to stop perpetuating the hate. Social media needs to stop forwarding the hate. Politicians need to step up and work together to do what we’ve asked of them—like combat our real enemies of homelessness and healthcare, and to protect us from foreign threats and keep us thriving.
If we all realize that no American is the enemy, there will be no civil war to fight, only civil people.
Robert Nahas is a contributor at www.thriveglobal.com