I stumbled across this opinion piece today, and felt compelled to respond. Please read the article first and then continue with my thoughts below.
My hatred of Donald Trump has been bottomless. Then my car broke down outside the Women’s March in DC...I wanted to be with people who shared my anger. Because I have been so angry about Donald Trump this past year. I have been angry at my country for electing this man, angry at my neighbors who support him, angry at the wealthy who sacrificed our country and its goodness for tax breaks, angry at the coal miners who believed his promises. Read the full article...
This article grieves my heart. I have seen echoes of it in people I respect and care about, but need therapy, medication and a large dose of hate and panic to attempt to cope with how they perceive our world.
Ruth is allowing herself to be consumed from the inside, her own anger cannibalizing her heart, soul, mind, and home. I hoped that her experience with the helpful self-described redneck (we don't actually know his ideological leanings, other than a willingness to help someone in need) would be a wake-up call. She comes so close, but then falls back into a ball of loathing and blame of anyone but herself for her choices and completely misses what this incident had to teach her.
No one can steal your soul from you without you allowing it. If you chose to let your anger indwell you each morning, to step off your porch, close the door and isolate yourself from diverse opinions, to associate only in hopes of stoking the fires within you, you cannot blame it on someone else and take no responsibility your own choices.
You can resist without damaging the psyche of yourself and your family.
You can protest without so wallowing in your own self-importance that you are shocked when someone who you assume disagrees with you politically still acts like a normal caring human being. Perhaps some deep self-reflection is needed to ask if you would help someone with a Trump sticker who was broken down on the side of the road. To ask yourself how your neighbors were still able to step outside and into the community when there was a president they greatly disliked and mistrusted.
You can make your voice heard in a more constructive way than feeding into and off of the anger and hate of others who agree with you. I understand the temptation - there are past presidential administration policies that have directly harmed our family. But I realized that while being active in trying to change and improve things was important, focusing daily on anger and feeding it all the choicest bits of my life is neither healthy nor productive.
Being tolerant means you may have to still care about people you disagree with - even while continuing to disagree with them.
Being tolerant means making an effort to understand the other side of the argument.
What world will your resistance birth when its foundations are built on a blind seething rage and assumptions for anyone who doesn't agree with your viewpoint?
You can't claim that loves wins while loving only those who agree with you.
You can't defeat hate while drinking - literally - from a cup of hate each morning to fuel your daily life.
You can't love while cradling your hate tenderly close to your chest until it deforms and mutates your soul.
