I have been trying to put into words how I feel about the election results. The difficulty is that there is so much emotion tied to this. My first response was, I feel the best response. Here is what I first posted on Facebook:

It can be despairing for many people to see what’s going on in this election. It can also be a great joy and triumph for others. The President of the United States is a powerful position in our government. But let’s not forget a few things.

1st) The President has no legal power to personally put bills on the floor for a vote. Only Congress can do that. Congress can override a Presidential veto. As far as law making goes, it is Congress who has the ultimate authority, but even that is subject to the Supreme Court.

2nd (this is more important) The President has no direct power over the choices you make as an individual. If you wish to see change in our world, it not the President you should focus on. It is yourself. I’ve heard it said numerous times: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” If you want to see starving people fed, go and feed them. If you want someone to help the single mom of 3 kids, don’t wait for someone from the government to do it. Go do it yourself. Always remember, it is the actions of people that truly shape and direct this world.

Even though this was my initial response, I have found that it has been difficult to stick to that in my own emotions and thoughts. My mind dwells on the Hispanic students in the classrooms where my wife is a substitute teacher. What will happen to them? What about my friends who are a part of the LGBTQ community? Will they be attacked in the streets? Will they be insulted and harassed? What kind of influence will Donald Trump have over this nation as President? How do we rectify the fact that some of our president elect’s supporters are the KKK, Vladimir Putin, and North Korea? Or what about the fact that Trump’s campaign has been primarily built upon rudeness, hatred, and supremacy?

But in all of this, I digress from my main point of this writing. After all, the election of Trump isn’t the root cause of the problem, but rather, a symptom. It is a symptom of something inside of America as a whole that is corrosive and destructive. I think if we continue to boil down the issues, whether it be racism, sexism, abortion, gay marriage, or any other such issue, we find ourselves at what is perhaps the great cause of strife in our country as humans. Our country is divided. Deeply. Every issue. Black Lives Matter VS Blue Lives Matter. Pro-life VS Pro-choice. Republican VS Democrat. Liberal VS Conservative. Pick any topic and you will almost immediately see two very strongly opposed sides. More than that, these sides have VERY strong opinions about their opposition. Conservatives tend to view liberals as idiots who don’t know anything about real life and just want to give everything to everyone for free. Liberals tend to view conservatives as out of touch with people and as having backwards or archaic thinking. Conservatives call liberals lazy and entitled. Liberals call conservatives greedy and bigots. Yes, these are generalization statements and they are not necessarily true of everyone in those camps, but having grown up in Texas and then lived the last quarter of my life in California, I’ve gotten a pretty chance to see both ends of the spectrum in action. I’m sure most of us have heard this before:

United we stand. Divided we fall.

And wow are we divided. There is almost complete gridlock in our country because no one will compromise on how to solve a problem. And I don’t mean compromise in the sense of compromising your character or morals. I mean our opposite ends won’t generally sit down and just work together on a problem. Imagine what could happen with tensions between blacks and police if everyone stopped the shouting matches and took a second to listen to each other. Imagine if we looked at immigration issues and didn’t immediately jump to of “deport them” or “amnesty for all.” What if we dealt with the hard reality that some children in this country are, by our laws, legal citizens when their parents are not? What do we do in that kind of situation? What if deporting an illegal immigrant means their children lose their father? Are we really so heartless as a nation as to say, “Oh well. Sucks for the kid.”

The key flaw. The problem that our country has. It’s a two part issue. The first is that our nation seems to embrace the idea that I am always right. If I have an opinion, I am right, you are wrong, end of discussion. That is how we think in America. We have filled our heads with so much pride that we can’t even fathom the idea that we might be wrong about something, and so when there are two opposing sides on an issue in our country, neither side gives way because they believe they are completely one hundred percent correct. The second issue with our country, and the one I wish to stress the most, is this:

As a whole, our nation has forgotten that our opponents are human.

Read that again.

As a whole, our nation has forgotten that our opponents are HUMANS!

We aren’t liberal, conservative, republican, democrat, or any other title. We are human. We see media clips and sound bites of people. We hear news agencies with a skewed perspective give us the details. We naturally pull ourselves into our own little worlds and look at the world as if everyone sees things the way we do. This is part of human nature. Humans, as a creature, naturally turn inward over time unless they actively work to not do so. When we go through the motions of our normal day, we lose sight of everything that’s not a part of our world. Get up, get the kids to school, go to work, come home, eat dinner, put the kids to bed, watch TV, go to bed. There’s no room in that schedule for the world outside ourselves and yet that is so easily the pattern we allow ourselves to get into. We have to wake up from this delusion and isolated view. People living on the street aren’t lazy, good-for-nothing blobs that deserve what they got. They are people struggling to get by with the most basic necessities that, if you are reading this, we most likely take for granted. People on welfare aren’t lines of drug addicts and people who pop out kids to not have to work. They are people whose income is horrid because dad couldn’t afford college and they can’t afford child care so mom or dad has to stay home with the kids all day.

These are people with real problems and real emotions. Please, America. I beg you. Stop looking at everyone that doesn’t think like you and then ignore them. Stop looking a country of people that oppose your views as the enemy. We are a part of this world together and it is our job to work together to make it a better place. Though we may be different, we can still stand united as one. Please, please, please remember. These are people around you. Fathers, Mothers, daughters, sons, friends, coworkers. Every single person you ever see is one of these things and more to someone else. Never forget that people are just like you, even if they don’t think just like you.