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“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I and many of my friends are not happy today. The old Chinese curse comes to mind, “May you live in interesting times.” And there’s no doubt about it; things are about to get very interesting.

We need to get on with it, roll up our sleeves, pull on our boots, and go to work.

It won’t be easy.

We must move quickly through our first four stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.

This will all be painfully hard, but if we keep our eyes focused on the fifth, and final stage, acceptance, only then can our real work begin.

We mistakenly chose this path years ago, allowing our country to divide into two parallel universes. We moved into our comfortable places, in our comfortable households, with those who comfortably looked and acted like us.

We didn’t think much about the parallel universe beside us. We didn’t think of all the others, with their different skin colors, languages, and faith traditions. They were there, if we had looked closer.

We separated this nation, and now it is up to us to bring it back together.

The value of this painful election will be in reminding us how good we are as a nation, how multicultural we have always been, and how much better we can be, by going forward – together.

Now the real work begins. What do you think? How were you shocked by this election, or did you see it coming?

What are your solutions to bringing us together?

How can we make our best days still be ahead of us?

As always, the conversation starts here.

“In the ordinary choices of every day we begin to change the direction of our lives.” – Eknath Easwaran

Epilogue

Could the world be as dived as this video suggest? How can we begin to repair the damage?