What a Week

I don't even know where to start. The election? So much has happened since the election. My thoughts went back and forth whether or not I wanted to share my feelings on the subject. So many other people did do just that, and some quicker than others. Facebook was inundated immediately. I've always been a little more reserved than jumping right into the flames. It wasn't a problem necessarily, and no one seemed to say anything wrong, just expressing their feelings. Whether those feelings were good or bad, well, that depends on which side of the fence you were on when you read what they had to say. On some, I would find myself reading the comments and feeling neutral. Others, I could feel my skin begin to crawl with disagreement.

The funny thing is, I've never been this involved in an election, ever. I didn't begin voting until 2008, and no, it wasn't directly related to any person running for office that year. I just simply felt that I wanted to.

I am the type of person who feels pretty strong about how I believe the government works. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you must, but I have always felt that my vote wouldn't matter. I'm not talking about the actual count of the votes, electoral college, etc. I'm speaking plainly, that regardless of the outcome, I felt that my vote didn't matter. The government was going to run the country and make the decisions that "they" needed to be made, regardless of who was sitting in the "big chair".

This election, I also found myself getting aggravated with all the people protesting afterwards. This made no sense to me, nor did it with a lot of people. This country has a system, and it has always worked. All of the sudden, you had people screaming that it was wrong, or it wasn't fair, or it wasn't supposed to happen this way or that way. Well, this is called democracy. It's simple to understand, and the decision has been made. Whether we like it or not, the president elect will take office this January. There were a lot of people in 2004, 2008, and 2012 that were scared of the change, but then again, who isn't scared everytime something changes? There are not too many people in the world who just flow right along and don't ask questions about anything, and just deal with life day by day and never worry.

I feel we are all nervous about our new president, but, for what it's worth, let's try and do the same for this president that we did in the years past. Let's take one day at a time. The last thing we need to be doing is singling out our family and friends just because they may have "voted for the other person". It's no different than a sporting event. If your team loses, do you stop talking to your friends and family? I'm sure there is an exception to every situation, but my guess would be, no. You move on and wait until the next game to try again. We should be treating elections the same. We should be treating each other with kindness, and be a little more objective when it comes to these types of situations. Everyone has their own opinions, and not everyone will choose to take the same route as you when traveling throughout life. We are all different. That's not a bad thing. It's good to have the diversity. Some of us need it in more ways than one. And, it's good for the soul.

Learn to love your neighbor. This life is not only precious, but short. I, for one, certainly don't won't to live with regrets.