If there is anything this nasty, fear-driven, dispiriting political season has demonstrated, it's that no politician -- Democrat, Republican, or otherwise -- has any compelling solutions to what ails us. Even as partisan a figure as Jeb Bush is suggesting voters are feeling "disgust with the political class."
We live in a world that has grown increasingly complex and contradictory, angry and fearful, polarized but utterly interdependent.
How, then, to feel more control over our destiny amid so many daunting challenges and so few clear answers?
Here are four very personal behaviors to consider, offered in a spirit of hopefulness and humility:
1. Practice Realistic Optimism.
There is a powerful principle in psychology called "bad is stronger than good." We're quicker to notice threats to our well-being than we are to focus on what's working well.
Often, it's an instinct that serves us poorly. There is a difference between the facts in any given situation, and the story we tell about them. It's easy to latch onto a negative story in difficult times like these.
The alternative is "realistic optimism." That doesn't mean putting a happy face on every situation, which is just blind optimism. Rather it means intentionally telling the most hopeful and empowering story in any given situation, without subverting the facts.
Just think about your current life for a moment. What are you most worried about? Write down a few examples. Next, ask yourself what's the most realistically optimistic story you can tell about the one of those situations -- the best possible outcome given the same set of facts?
Plainly we have a choice about where to put our attention. Exercising that choice effects how we feel. Because emotions are contagious, how we feel profoundly influences how we make others feel, and how effective we are at whatever we do.
2. Build More Bridges
In an era marked by fractiousness and extremes, what connects us rather than divides us? Where can we find common ground? Certainly, there are universal desires we all share: a safe and secure world, people we can love and who love us, a hopeful future for our children.
But so long as our value depends on devaluing what others believe, or judging the way others live, we're in a zero sum game that insures defensiveness, conflict and pain.
I have a good friend with a worldview that couldn't be more different than mine. Still, there is much about him I appreciate: his generosity, integrity, commitment to his family and friends, and incredible intellectual curiosity.
When we have lunch, we don't dwell on our differences. We focus on our shared interests. He enriches my life, and I believe I enrich his. We enjoy hanging out together. Nothing so lifts us up as feeling valued by another human being.
I wish I had more friends like him.
3. Add Value Every Day
After three years of a recession that shows all too few signs of abating, it's no surprise that people are feeling the full range of negative emotions from terror to rage. But to what end?
We derive little value and create even less by complaining and whining, bickering and blaming.
It's an illusion that expressing anger is cathartic. Expressing emotions strengthens them, for better and for worse. Anger simply begets more anger. The more blame we dole out, the better we get at blaming, and the more helpless we feel.
Taking responsibility is the alternative. That means investing energy in what you can influence, and not dissipating it on what you can't.
How, in short, can we find ways to add value to one other and to the commons, every day? The first key is shifting attention from our own immediate desires and anxieties so we're free to focus on the needs of others. Doing so calls on a capacity many of us haven't sufficiently cultivated: deliberately delaying gratification.
You can feel good, effortlessly, by drinking a couple of beers, but it won't last. Adding value takes effort, and sometimes means sacrifice, but it makes us feel good about ourselves in more enduring ways.
I'm not suggesting a life devoted exclusively to selfless service, because that's not realistic. But how much of your energy do you expend right now in anxiety, complaint, envy and advancing your own cause?
What's one very specific behavior could you ritualize in your life to make the world you live in a little better each day?
Paradoxically, the more we give away, the more we get back.
4. Give Yourself a Break
The greater the performance demand, the greater the need for recovery. As the world speeds up, we need to keep a balance between doing and not doing. By building in a true renewal break at least every 90 minutes, you'll feel better, think more clearly, be less reactive and ultimately you'll get better, more considered results.
And finally, at the end of every day, take a few minutes to reflect on what's right in your life.
Follow Tony Schwartz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TonySchwartz
Thomas Moore: How to Avoid Polarizing Others
It's good to see someone concentrating on the root of the problem, which is indeed emotions.
Nothing to add. Thanks.
the comment by Vasumurti to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anju-bhargava/out-of-many-one-diwali-il_b_778973.html
mentions the Yugas [ 4 time spans , similar to business cycles ] " world gone mad " is Kali Yuga
golden age [ all positive emotions naturally lived ] is sat yuga
republicans are kali yuga ;
during his 50 years of public service maharishi mahesh yogi rolled back kali yuga [ many 1000s of years before it was supposed to end ] and started sat yuga
As a result our country perpetrates the indoctrination of our youth with allegiance to biblical bullshit.
Like all good lads, with susceptible, open, and willing to please minds, our children absorb the material that our educational system presents to them..That is what is lame about our country and will be the cause of our countries demise. In America we educate our youth to memorize rather than think. As a result our country has millions of people who are frustrated and angry and have no ability to figure out what needs to be done. Americans, in general, are a lock step bunch of moronic individuals who have not been educated to think. There are very few thinking minds in our country. As a result we have few leaders with thinking minds. All we produce are politicians who have no clue other than to state that they are listening to the voices of our countries wonderful citizens who themselves have no clue but are hopeful that our leaders, who they vote for, possess thinking minds. There in lies the frustration and anger. America as a country lacks thinking minds.. Americans want to elect people with whom they can identify. People who do not have the acumen to think.
Senate – Two six year terms
House - Two six year terms and elections celebrated in same year for both.
President – Two four year terms
Governors and Mayors – Two four year terms and elections celebrated same year as the Presidential elections.
Less elections, less pre-electoral stress! Let's go for it!
Would make no difference because the big money buying would just move on to the next greedy slimeball waiting in the wings with wide-open pockets. And the vote-buying music would just go on and on.
No, what we need is not term limits, but total and complete finance of elections and much shorter campaign periods (like Great Brittan's).
I do believe that when we are afraid or feel betrayed there is a need to let the anger out. Then however, we have to fight the hard fight of letting in the love. It may sound mushy and simplistic, however, there are enough personal stories to show that positive attitudes do impact health and well being and make a long term in our lives. Life is just one big research project anyway, so why not give love a chance!
Sylvia Lafair
It is true that positive thinking does not make any difference, but the author's view is more nuanced. Emotional education is important even if (or especially because) people naturally tend towards negative emotions.
1.Currency devaluation
2. Supply interruption of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine.
Take care of your hierarchy of needs. Than relax and feel good about yourself. Don't follow the lead of Pollyanna in the event of a crisis. Our government is obviously incompetent. Don't expect the "system" to save you.
Hope for the best. Plan for the worst
That has been the case of political parties and solutions in America. Both parties like where they have worked to put you--it has take decades to put in place the government and economy you are now in. Neither wants solutions they need bigger problems.
There is one new political party/group that has solutions. The first is to rebuild, retool and reeducate America. Rebuild our cities, retool our industry and reeducate, at all levels of education and all ages on how to think and work. Next is to change free trade to equal trade. If you want to sell it here, at the docks it has to equal what it costs to produce in the USA. This will put tens of thousands of people back to work. Added to that is retool, every start up and manufacturing will modernize. Reeducate the worker to run the new equipment. Education, touchy but needed. Anyone at eighteen and up to twenty five has the ability to enlist in a four, six or eight year military program that sets in writing six months education out of every 12 months. At the end of the military service they have the college benefits and loan benefits. They can not be sent over seas. Solutions!
Good: Reed uses Nuclear option to sidestep the filibuster in lame duck -- cranks out every bill now so-stymied -- then kills the filibuster at start of next session.
Better: the "good" option + Barack shows some Truman teeth and Johnson ear-pulling
Best: the "better option" + Mission Impossible pays a nonvisible late-night visit to each of the Repub congressfolks (note: this message will self-destruct in 60 seconds).
You will know if option "best" has occurred if Boehner shows up on TV the next day crying and without his customary tan (as in pale, real pale).
The minute the republicans get one leg up ..... oil prices started moving up. Just shows once again just how well the dummying down of America of this generation has worked.
We don't have to wait for crude to hit $100, the $80 a barrel crude has already put a little pressure on the economy's brakes, the $90 barrel will put a lot of pressure on the brakes, and $100 will be the point when the emergency brake is applied, the economy flies through the windshield. That will be the signal for everyone to kiss any their piece American pie goodbye. The sudden drop into another recession will turn sharply far-right into a depression and there won't be another chance for a recovery for 100 years. Once again it all just shows just how misguided legal Americans have become by letting the likes of Glen Beck, Bill, O'Really?, and Scan Hannity to lie through their teeth, and tell them which way to screw on your head every morning. But want the crap, it sure will make the Carpetbaggers happy as Hell ..... while the republicans dismantling Bank reform, and setting this nation on a dead-end course to nowhere.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-03/oil-to-surpass-6-month-high-as-fed-stimulus-weakens-dollar-energy-markets.html
For some positive programs that can generate jobs and help boost the economy, see: www.aesopinstitute.org
It is time to consider how to make the "impossible", possible. To the surprise of many, it can be done!