[Today’s run: 2 miles]
I spent way to much time over the last 6 months thinking about the presidential election. I did the same thing in 2008 also.
I’m not sure why I get caught up in it so much.
One of my personality faults (I said one!) is that I’d really like other people to be happy; happy with me in particular. That’s a childish desire but I easily fall into it. It leads to various problems, mostly of a kind where I state my beliefs then backtrack when people seem to be surprised or offended.
In politics compromise is the key, and a lot of life is politics. And of lot of my beliefs are wavery and not very well supported. So I end up saying things then backtracking… speaking before thinking.
We had the election yesterday and I cannot complain about how the day went. Voting was easy and my neighbors were kind and polite. It can’t be much better than that. Local and state races turned out OK, in my view. I frankly haven’t lived here long enough to know the sub-texts and history. But I’m glad that our state is in opposition to the national trend these days.
I woke up this morning and checked the results and was kind of depressed about it for a while. I’m feeling better now. I don’t think the status-quo was the best choice, but that is what we’ve voted for.
I have some friends, small business owners, who are pretty upset. I can see their point. But nothing in politics stays the same for long: if the local barber shop closes up because of Obamacare then changes will be made.
I did have a bit of an education while talking to people before the election. The whole “War on Women” thing looked so transparently bogus to me. But that is a hot button for a lot of women. There seems to be a large minority of women who really most sincerely are afraid of men. I can’t say they’re wrong to be. But just another eye-opener, like the day you realize that you would love to pick up that hitch hiker in the rain but because of the evil of men painted with a broad brush, you have some of that paint on you too and it limits you.