Taking the Problem Out of the Solution

I forgot.

I had a conversation last night with some friends about all the ways the Republicans are manipulating voters through the media (they own it, after all). I was sick with anxiety and depression afterwards about the election and what the country could look like with a McCain presidency. I was so wound up I made an appointment to talk with my counselor today.

Her response was that she's been stockpiling art supplies. (She also said Palin is a non-issue. If she becomes VP, she'll have no power except tie breaking and if McCain were to die and she became president, the survivalists would take her out because they wouldn't tolerate a female president. Interesting theory.) My counselor's not an activist, so she's going to hunker down and focus (literally and figuratively) on cleaning up her own backyard. She said her husband told her, "We got through the Civil War and World War I. We can get through this."

He's right, of course. This country survived Vietnam, too. And many people lived through the Holocaust. People have made it through many scary political times. As my counselor said, they just did what they had to in order to get through. They connect with their friends, they cook food and eat it, and they survive until things get better. Thinking about it that way makes me feel like I can breathe again.

We talked about how caught up I was getting in anger and opposition, and here's the thing I forgot: the power of taking the problem out of the solution. It's been a frustration of mine for years with the liberal community. How much time and energy do we spend telling ourselves that we're right and our opposition is wrong? OK - move on. Quit focusing on the problem and move on to the solution. It's like my favorite line in the AA Big Book: When I stopped living in the problem and began living in the answer, the problem went away.

I'm not naive enough to think that McCain is going to go away. But he can go away in my head. I can quit (to use another AA cliche) giving him room in my head rent free. Instead of talking about how much more Democrats care about the fate of ALL Americans, let's just move it into the practical realm and get to work. As Dorothy Day said, "No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do."

While I see the truth in that, there are times when I need to sit down and feel hopeless. In fact, it might be more accurate - for me at least - to say: Sometimes I need to sit down and feel hopeless - because there's so much work to do. It's a s@@@ or get off the pot kind of thing. It's when I don't allow myself to fully experience my feelings that they follow me around for days or weeks - like the cloud of filth that always accompanied Pig Pen in the Snoopy cartoons. I stopped trying to "buck up" for a little while this afternoon and let myself feel the depth of my fear and sorrow (and let tears fall for a minute or two). That's all it took. I stopped fighting the feelings and allowed them to surface. Shortly after that I felt more hopeful and cheerful than I had in a couple days. Now I can focus on the solution, which tonight means vacuuming and doing the dishes, then getting ready for my day tomorrow. I'm going to keep it that simple for today.