The Awesome Power of a Smile and a Wave
No matter what happens on November 5th… smile and wave at your neighbors.
Soooooooooooo there’s a thing happening tomorrow and just in case you’re reading this in the distant future, people fall into two camps…
Either they’re completely “dug in” on their respective side oooorrrrrrr they’re so tired of all of the noise, they’ve tuned out completely.
My goal here is not to say who’s right and who’s wrong. I definitely have opinions on that subject, and I’m just as “dug in” on those opinions as anyone else, secure in my knowledge that the “other side” is just… wrong.
Uhhhhh then WTF is your point Rob?
I’m getting there Snarky Voice in My Head!! My point is that I’ve finally come to recognize exactly HOW dug-in I am on my opinions and how much being dug-in is starting to affect how I see people I encounter in the world each day.
But isn’t being dug-in what politics is all about?
Heylllll no! It’s about compromise and working together with your neighbors to get speed bumps put on your street and occasionally doing big things like making women and non-white people actual humans by law and spending a trillion dollars on bombs that make a few people rich when schools don’t have enough resources and people don’t have health care and…
Whoa there Nelly, you’re heading off a cliff!!
Deep breaths… Whew… thanks Snarky… You might not believe this, but YOU are a big part of why I’m so calm going into this week.
Uhhhhhh what you talkin’ bout Willis?
Uhhhhh… I’m going to pretend you didn’t just make a cheesy ‘80s reference and keep going…
For a few years now, I’ve been going relatively deep on the concept of mindfulness. Trying to pay attention to the thoughts that are always coming and going through my head.
It’s really hard… The kind of thing you have to practice every single day and there’s no miraculous moment where you’re suddenly “mindful” when the sun rays shine down with the choir singing joyful refrains.
BUT… it IS a practice of “small wins”.
Moments where you realize “hmmmm I guess I don’t want that donut”. And sometimes you even put the donut down.
Who the F are you and what have you done with Rob???!!!
It’s still me Snarky… But YOU are a part of me.
At the risk of getting all metaphysical and shit, my daily practice has helped me recognize the thoughts going through my head and YOU occupy a LOT of space in those thoughts. But, here’s the important part…
The Snarky Voice in My Head isn’t good or bad… It just is.
So now I’m an “IT”??
You know damn well how I feel about you, so don’t pretend to be hurt. Let’s get back on track before we lose people.
My mindfulness practice has helped me see that the Snarky Voice has insights to the world… sometimes incredible insights AND sometimes unhelpful insights.
The most helpful insight I’ve had is that the endless news and commentary cycle is bad for me.
Humans are predisposed to see things in a negative light. It’s a trait that kept us alive on the savannah. Yes, there probably ARE lions hiding in the grass. Those berries probably ARE poisonous.
A continuous feed of negative information from ANY source taps right into our most basic evolutionary traits, keeping us in a constant state of fight/flight and never allowing us to release that tension. Yes, in the distant past we did get chased by actual lions, but then we escaped the lion and got a chance to relax and get down to the funky business of making more people thus breaking the cycle of anxiety.
Soooo is this an anti-media rant?
Thanks to you, no… I recognized that this information stream was not healthy for me, and more importantly it was causing me to look at people I see around town with that same negative lens.
I do NOT want to go through the world thinking that everyone I meet is “other” or one of “them”… They might not believe the same things as me… they might have voted for the wrong things from my point of view… but they’re still people.
They still have hopes and fears and dreams like I do. They make their decisions in life based on those hopes and fears and dreams like I do.
They’re still people just like me.
FIIIIIINALLY we’re at the point!!
Yes, Snarky… My point is that no matter what happens tomorrow, your neighbors are still your neighbors. Worthy of love. We all live here together, and each day we have a choice how to be in the world.
My father-in-law, Bob Dougherty is no longer with us in life, but when my wife and I were dating, he managed a McDonald’s in Platte City, Missouri. One day the local head of the KKK came into his restaurant. Bob was a pretty large black man, who could easily intimidate people but he never did. Instead of confronting this KKK Grand Whatever or even ignoring him, Bob walked out from the back office and extended his hand with a smile. “Hello… Welcome to my restaurant… I hope you enjoy your meal.”
The man who had obviously expected a confrontation became flustered at being “forced” to shake the hand of a black man, and he left. But he did come back to eat there on a regular basis, and Bob always made it a point to say hello and welcome him into his space.
I want to choose to meet my neighbors with love and peace. I want to greet them the way I would hope they’d greet me. And even when they don’t reciprocate, I’ll take a page from Bob’s playbook.
No matter what happens tomorrow, I want to meet people with a smile and a wave.
No AI was used in the writing of this article OR in the creating of the banner image dammit.
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