The voters have spoken, they have made their voices, their preferences, their needs, their priorities known. To someone like me, and to those interested in reading this, it is a good thing. It is good because it includes going forward and working towards the values we hold dear, values that will make us and our society more inclusive or equal. Through their votes, people came together in unprecedented numbers because for many months before that they received news they were upset by, disliked, disagreed with, stood against. For all the stomach churning of the news and the depressed feeling each item generated, the coming together reflected in the vote couldn’t have happened otherwise. The good came because the need for it was revealed through the difficult to take news most were subjected to. It’s like cancer. No one feels good receiving a cancer diagnosis. Yet it must precede the treatment and, in many cases, the cure.
We’re so enmeshed in thinking that good must come from what is pleasant and feels good, that we forget that the meaning of good goes far deeper. Knowing a problem exists is part of the good its solution represents.
In the many months to come we shall be exposed to much that is difficult to take. We now live with a different kind of polarized society: The voters and those they voted against. Since those voted against are still in power, let us steel ourselves for a bumpy ride. Only then shall we be witness to the making of what’s good. And when the next vote comes, make our choice prevail again to continue going forward.
*reposted from GGID page
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