The world is ending, and it’s going to be OK

My thoughts on Election Day

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

It’s Election Day

The world as we know it is on the precipice of apocalyptic change: social, political, and technological restructuring that will disorient pretty much everyone over the span of not very many years.

I’m not here predicting wars (though those are already happening), or economic collapses (though those are already happening), or natural disasters (though...you might be sensing a pattern here.) I make no prophetic claims.

Rather, I can taste the wind. I think everyone can. Which is why so many people are absolutely losing their minds about this election. It feels significant in a way that no election in my lifetime has felt.

Much of this vibe, maybe most of it, is thanks to the grinding maw of media that induces and ingests public outrage as its entire mode of metabolism. The histrionic narrative that almost everyone now believes is that if the other side wins, it is the beginning of doom.

Well, I’ve got bad news. Thanks to that radical polarity, it is the beginning of doom either way.

As of right now, when only half the votes have been cast and counted, and everyone waits with baited breath for The Results (TM), all of the people who have bought that narrative are saying their prayers and crossing their fingers that their side wins, so that everything can BE OKAY.

But I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t matter who wins this election. We are not going to be okay. At least, not in the way the partisans hope for. Not in the way you quietly hoped for when you filled in the bubbles on the ballot.

By the end of today, the outcome will not be definitive, and the Outrage Machines, in their unquenchable thirst for your fear and anger, will cash in on the uncertainty with their full powers.

What will this look like? It will look like blame. It will look like accusations of villainy. Just like always, you will be invited to hate and fear the people who didn’t vote the way you did. But now, that invitation will feel more like a conscription.

By the end of today, and then into tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, the fires of contention will burn hotly in this country. Partisan screaming will drown out all other public discourse. You think it was bad before? Wait until next week.

But I’m not here to stoke your anxieties. I’m here to tell you that it’s going to be okay.

Yes, the world is coming to an end, and yes, it’s going to be okay.

We all know that change is the only constant, but we still freak out when things don’t go the way we want. We’re convinced that in order for us to be okay, the world must conform to our preferences. It’s embarrassing to admit this out loud, but there it is.

But we can’t control the world. We can’t make things go the way we want. This has always been true, and it always will be true.

What we CAN do, is show up to the present moment and ask, “How can I help?”

How can I help?

I asked myself that question this morning, and felt strongly that this would be the right time to write to you, and tell you that everything is going to be okay.

Not that the world won’t end. It is already ending.

And not that times won’t be tough. When have they ever not been tough?

Here is how everything can and will be okay:

In this moment, and in the next, and every moment thereafter, it is possible to choose love. It is possible to let go of fear, to let go of anger and malice, and try to offer some kindness, some comfort.

It might not feel possible, but it is possible.

We need only to be reminded.

We will not do this consistently or perfectly, and that’s also okay. My failure to let go of my gasping, grasping self and practice love in past moments in no way prevents me from doing so in this one.

No matter the circumstances, no matter the social chaos or private hurricanes, the present moment always shows up with the same opportunity.

Blessed are the peacemakers

If you are fortunate enough to find some inner peace today, tomorrow, and in the days and weeks to come, I ask you with all the energy of my soul to reach out and do your best to give it to others. Call your brother, your aunt, your daughter, your friend. Remind them that we are, all of us, children of light. We are, all of us, appendages of the great human family.

We are not enemies, we are kin.

Everyone deserves love, no matter who they voted for, or why. Everyone needs peace, no matter how much pain they suffer...or cause.

Some people will nod their heads, and their shoulders will relax a little, and the tightness in their chests will loosen.

Others will recoil. The very suggestion that their enemies deserve their love will kindle the flames of their indignation.

And so you, the peacemaker, will be persecuted.

They will accuse you of betraying your kind.

They will accuse you of ignorance and cowardice.

They will accuse you of tacit support for the enemy.

In order to make peace, you must ignore them. You must move on to help those who will accept your help. You must offer comfort to those who will accept your comfort.

As of today, any productive political discourse to which you may have felt called will be over. As of today, the work that needs doing is to calm troubled minds, and to cool heated tempers.

You don’t have to start with the people who will probably yell at you. Start with your friends. Start with your family. Start with the people who love you, who trust you, who will be enormously comforted if you just reach out to ask how they’re doing.

You will be tempted today, all day, and tomorrow, and probably for the rest of this week and next, to doomscroll through a fog of suffocating anxiety. To feed the Outrage Machines and lose your mind.

But you don’t have to do that. You can instead return to the moment in front of you, and ask the question that will always make everything okay:

How can I help?