Connections

I've had a hard time writing blog posts lately.  There are a lot of reasons, but one is that sometimes I feel like I just keep saying the same things over and over again.

Today I gave myself permission to do just that.  Because the message  is too important to stop communicating.

One of the most distressing truths of current day America is how comfortable so many people are with behaving badly.  It is hard to read more than five Facebook posts without encountering someone calling someone else an ugly name.

And with comments on news articles?  One is usually enough.

I worked with a very smart man who always said just because you disagree, you don't have to be disagreeable.  I think that is a great code to live by.

I wish more people would adopt that code.

My regular readers know that I believe that we can find a connection with everyone we meet if we look for it.  I believe that if you build relationships with people, you can find common ground to build compromise on.  I also believe that without the time invested in building the relationship, the time to find common ground, it is too easy to view each other as caricatures instead of people.

And it seems that so many people are comfortable to treat anyone who doesn't agree with them as lesser, or useless, or contemptible.

Most of us are just flawed human beings trying to get by.  Calling each other hurtful names is unnecessary.

If you don't have the ability to articulate your point in polite language, it could be you don't have a point.

It seems to me that the United States is more divided now than at any time since the Vietnam War.  I was really more of a child than an adult then, but I still perceived that in spite of the riots, and the shouting in the streets, there were still adults in government who were trying to compromise to find solutions.

I don't see that now.  I see many in government as ideologues, who have more commitment to their beliefs than to a prosperous American society.  And we keep electing them.

I think it is the most important time in history to talk to people who you disagree with.  Try to find your connection to them, try to find common ground.

Once you have a relationship, ask them to articulate their beliefs and positions.  Try as hard as you can to listen with an open mind and an open heart.  Ask permission to state your belief and positions with the same courtesy you have shown listening to theirs.  If there is no common ground, at least you have had the opportunity to hear a different perspective, and to share your perspective.

We can't make progress if we keep shouting at each other instead of talking to each other.  We're in this together, whether we want to be or not.  Things will continue to get worse unless more people commit to making them better.

We can all give in to the fear, and the anger and the hate, or we can keep on promoting love, and kindness and civility.

I refuse to give up on love.  I refuse to give up on people because they see the world differently than I do.  I promise to keep trying to open people's eyes to the power of connections, the power of relationships, the power of compromise.

If enough of us are willing to throw a pebble in the pond of anger, we can create a tsunami of love.

At least it is worth trying.