Post-Election Practice

Now that we're all waking up from a 24-hour bender of either sorrow or celebration, there's an opportunity to step into a new kind of practice.

If your candidate won, it is worth taking a few moments to try to understand why so many people are lost in despair. And if your candidate lost, you have something to gain by honestly asking why more than half the voters supported the other person.

What's on the other side of our opinions and positionality? What if people who disagree with us aren't dumb, ignorant, or misguided? What if they have something to offer us other than fuel for our resentment and anger?

It's likely that some people you intimately know and love voted for the person you didn't. What would happen if we all asked why?

I voted for all of us, for a world where we invest in each other. I know I'm not the only one. It starts by moving beyond judgments to try to understand.

Perhaps it seems too early for you to attempt this kind of practice. I can understand that, too. But try it out -- what happens when you move beyond your satisfaction with a win or disappointment with a loss to meet someone else where they are?