Excuse me, do you have any hope you can spare?

I often wonder if there will ever be a time in the near future (or my lifetime for that matter) where our country will be united rather than divided. If the rights of citizens will ever be fully restored and not exploited, like certain provisions of the Patriot Act that infringe the rights of all Americans. If certain practices used by intelligence agencies on American citizens, that many believe are unconstitutional, will ever be abolished.

Is there ever going to be a President that will truly care for the rights of citizens? Will there be a President that actually fulfills their campaign promises 100 percent of the time they are in office, no matter the push back they receive from corporations or other branches of government? In my opinion, it seems like money and corruption is too intertwined in our current and established government, which personally makes it hard for me to find hope for the future of this country.

I have more faith and hope in the humanity of American citizens themselves, but that doesn’t seem to translate into politics or be enough to affect change for the better.

Why are many of us so satisfied being divided, digging our heels in, not willing give an inch in the opposite direction to those whose views may differ from our own? Failing to remember that we are all human, the strongest common bond we all share.

If you saw someone who was homeless starving and begging for food on the street, would you stop before helping them and ask yourself, “I wonder what their thoughts are on the 2nd Amendment, or women’s reproductive rights, or global warming, or what their preferred economic system is, etc?” I don’t believe that these questions would go through many of our minds at all.

Lately, I have made a conscious effort to try and avoid starting conversations about politics with those that I encounter and maybe have just met. Not because I don’t enjoy discussion, hearing a different point of view, or because of a lack of interest on the subject.

It is due to flaw that I have noticed within my self to judge to quickly and a failure to recognize and appreciate what me and someone else might have in common, that I value and feel is just as important as politics.

Personally, I am what some might consider very liberal. I wouldn’t consider myself what some people call a “bleeding heart liberal” (not that I would use that term either). But on the other hand I am a gun advocate (recreationally and for personal protection), love the outdoors, hunting and fishing etc. All of these things have value to me.

Through my experience these also are things that are commonly valued amongst more conservative people than I. Yet why is it that if when having a conversation with someone whose values are more conservative than my own, these things often aren’t important enough to keep either parties in a conversation from judging one another and bringing both of us to a point where we stop listening to each other completely? Reaching a point where either party no longer cares about what the other has to say or think.

Perhaps just being polite enough to allow the other person to speak. Meanwhile, the entire time the one respectfully being silent (myself included at times) is not really listening and just thinking about their response that they will give.

Is this a collective flaw in our thinking, where a lot of us exclude the possibility that our own thoughts and views may not be absolutely, entirely, 100 percent correct all the time?

If I try to examine how I have come to my own conclusions about any particular thing maybe my influences are not that much different from yours.

For me they would include, the thoughts and opinions of my family and close friends, life experience, the information in and about the world that is made available to us so that we hopefully are able to form to most informed and reasonable opinions, views, and conclusions. Even though I am not a mind reader and have never claimed to be, I would imagine this is the case for everyone.

Why is this process of getting to a particular viewpoint that I believe we all share not the thing thing to be valued, appreciated, and bond us together. Rather than the difference in views and result of our own thought processes being the thing to divide us.

If you asked a group of people if they thought they were perfect or have lived perfect lives with out making any mistakes, I doubt any sane person would seriously say “yes, I am”. Yet a lot of us feel so strongly at times, so right, so justified in our views (myself included at times), that we deny our selves the opportunity to possibly be wrong in our thinking.

Consequently, denying ourselves a potential opportunity to learn from one another.

I have hope for this country, it’s people, our government, and the world. But at times it seems that my own hope is a flickering candle on a patio table. The wind begins to blow and the sky threatens to rain. The rain soon follows and I attempt to desperately shield the tiny flame with my hands. The weather seems to get worse and I worry that the candle will soon be extinguished. With no means to change the candles situation or location in order to keep the flame alive, I begin to wish that there were more hands around me to protect the flame.

Maybe there would be if things were not so divisive. Maybe if I had listened to those I didn’t agree with, or chose to value what we had in common rather than focus on what made us different there be more hands to help. Maybe then we could all enjoy the candles light just a little bit longer under our metaphoric patio umbrella. Maybe if we remembered our strongest collective bond we all share is that we are all human, we are all imperfect, we all love someone, we all have the ability to forgive, be kind, and do great things that bring new and positive things to the world. We all have the power make change for the better in ourselves, in one another, in this country, and in the world.

But just like moving a sofa, it is much easier and a more effective way to spend our time if we did it together, rather than on our own.

I’m sure these thoughts are nothing new to the world and there is plenty of parallel thinking amongst other people in regards to what you have just read. The purpose of this to me was more of a therapeutic process with the hope that it could be a positive reminder to those that read it if anyone.

Thanks.