During the interminable election season many of us hunker down with our political ideology and persist in battling anyone who sees things differently than we do. Agenda gives way to preaching, which gives birth to dissention, argument and finally to anger and frustration. Mix, stir, and reapply.
Minds are rarely changed, but we live each day intent on not learning this. Onward we soldier with our perspectives, convictions and news links firmly tucked in our holsters, ready for the next duel. And for what?
The simple reality is this: What divides us politically pales in comparison to what unites us in our common humanity.
Every day we live our lives as parents, siblings, children, co-workers, lovers and friends. We go to bed fatigued and wake up each morning with a mix of something between excitement and fear. All of us. We eat, wash, talk, think, drive and move. We search for the right song, mix our coffee, frown or smile, wave or nod. Strangers among friends and friends among strangers.
We worry about our kids, while hoping the best for them. We question our decisions, think about times gone by and day-dream about times to come. We grow sentimental – or cranky – at the same passing thought, sometimes in the same sentence.
Some worry if they’ll have enough money for today; some worry if they’ll enough for next month and some about whether they’ll have enough for 30 years from now. Different pews, same church. Every one of us has bills that are coming, bills that are going. Postage paid or postage due? Accounts that balance, others that don’t.
Our humanity is a wardrobe; we share it, borrow it, create it and steal it. At ground level the mix of any one person’s day is strikingly similar to that of most everyone else; from 500 feet they are beautifully indistinguishable.
Non-Partisan Fido
You may vote one way and I may vote another. We’re both convinced, of course, that ours was the better, more informed, more compassionate choice. Neither of us will relent. Political capital will change hands but our humanity will not. The morning after the election will not change your routine or the way you drive your car, eat your food, love your family or put on your pants. It won’t change the people who smile from the ones who frown. It won’t make you more literate – or less. It won’t change your favorite TV show. It won’t change the smell of spring, the feel of summer or the beauty of fall. It won’t change what we love about winter, or what we hate about it. It won’t make the sick well, or the well sick. Your dog won’t even know who won.
So, if an election is powerless to recondition the basic experiences of our human interactions, powerless to alter what’s truly important to us and what isn’t, can it really be said that your “vote” is important? No, not really.
Of course, go out and vote. Just don’t expect to wake up the next morning and find the things that unite us suddenly less important than the politics that divide us. Thankfully, no candidate is that magical.
Dean Harrington is CEO of Shamrock Financial Corp. in Rumford, R.I.
