“Make peace with the present moment.”

Eckhart Tolle

How are you feeling?

People ask you that and then walk away. No one is really listening anymore. They say it to start a conversation. 

Well, I am asking now. How are you doing?

It’s the day after the elections in the US. No matter who you voted for (I hope you voted for someone) no one feels like a winner today. I am not a neutral observer. I am not a Democrat nor am I a Republican. Having said that, I do vote for a candidate that is not ethnocentric. I vote for more inclusivity, compassion, equality, equanimity and social justice. Whoever talks about policies that would include more of those values will get my vote.

The choice was pretty clear this time around. 

As a physician, one candidate questioned science and healthcare workers who have been fighting the pandemic for the past 7 months. You would say I don’t know what the other candidate would do in the exact situation. My guess is better than what has been happening in my world of medicine until now. 

Patients with COVID dying alone. Patients without COVID dying alone because of visitation rules put in place to protect the rest of the population. My job as a physician has become terribly difficult and I feel helplessly unsupported as our president questions the validity of our patients’ death. He says we falsely inflate the numbers so we can get paid more for it. 

The audacity of his false claims. Two weeks after he was released from the hospital being treated for COVID. 

The choice has been pretty clear this time around. 

But, even if he should win this election, my life will remain the same. I believe his policies would damage the life of the underprivileged. Ironically, the same group who votes to keep him in the office for another 4 years. But my life will mostly remain unchanged. 

So, how am I doing?

I will make peace with the present moment.

Not because I want to do so. Not because I think it is fair to have him dictate what laws get passed. Not because I don’t think about his presidency’s impact on the environment. Not because I want my children to watch his antics in the news and think a person with that temperament can go far in life.

I will make peace with the present moment because what I cannot control has to be. My frustration and attitude will not change the outcome. 

How I show up in my life, treating my family, my coworkers and my children will be more impactful than how I will let this election change who I am. 

The core of who I am will remain the same. 

I will make peace with the present moment, not because it’s the moment I am choosing to experience, but because I choose to accept it as what life has to offer right now.

Some good and some bad. 

I will let the wave of impermanence wash over me. 

All while I hold on to hope. That we all want a better future for our children and those who have so much less. Unless we see the world through the eyes of those who need a helping hand, we will never leave it a better place than we found it. 

So much love to you.