Truth

Truth is in the eye/ear/mind of the beholder. Therefore, everyone's truth is different. Frustrated folks all over the country, angry folks, desperate folks, don't understand this simple fact and until they do, they'll continue to generate more anger and frustration.

My truth will never be the same as yours. We might agree on a few things, but never on everything. My truth is generated by my life experiences, pure and simple. If I rely only on them, then my truth will never change. However, I have the opportunity to enlarge my view. Almost everyone has the same opportunity, but few take it. It's harder, takes more effort to learn about the world outside our personal experiences. We would rather stay in our comfortable little personal view.

Dana Stabenow has a character in some of her books--Shitting Seagull--who has an elaborate inner life centered around ships from space who regularly visit the docks he's responsible for. All the other characters in the books understand he has his own reality and truth and they deal with it. His truth is obviously not their truth, but it hurts no one, so...let it be.

Much of the anger generated this year is our inability to simply let others be. We accomplish nothing by insisting everyone has the same truth we do. If those around us don't want to change their world view, our anger, our yelling, will do nothing except raise our blood pressure. 

Instead, we need to take time, quiet time, away from the chaos and reflect on the things we can do to effect the changes our truth demands. There are positive steps we can take. Leave the negative behind. Let those with differing truths deal with the consequences. After all, the most likely changes in truth will come when we learn from our actions.

Truth.