I wish I had the answer but I believe that we all are responsible for our own little piece of existence anyway. Influence people positively. The alternative doesn't work. Hateful people are going to hate but maybe if the rest of us "normal" people don't buy into the media attempt to hype hate they don't act. Maybe we are feeding the fire. I mean look at how nasty we can be to someone just because they are registered with another political party or favor a particular sports team.
As I told my daughter every single day I dropped her off for school, do something nice for someone today.
Right on. Let's share things we can do. I put a list up above. I have not done many of those things. We did have a meeting last night.
The lady in the chair here is Muffy Davis, Paralympian, with her husband Jeff, behind. This is a meeting of the Blaine County Indivisible group. It was held at Muffy and Jeff's last night, who happen to be our neighbors. It is a group of locals trying to make a real difference locally, statewide, and nationally. The topic for last night was inclusiveness for the disabled. There were discussions about what is the correct/politically correct/whatever term, and Muffy response is how about approach her as an individual. She says, "I'm Muffy." You can see that at this gathering, people pulled pieces of paper from a hat and were assigned disabilities for the night, and had to pretend they were in a chair, without sight, hearing impaired, etc. Some interesting revelations occurred from the exercise.
This led to a discussion of inclusiveness concerning race, etc. Admittedly, Blaine County is not super racially diverse, but it does have a growing hispanic community who have fears these days obviously. I learned that though I consider myself to be a pretty good person/citizen, I have blind spots that should be considered. Not politically correct things, but practical things that help to include all in our society.
The group listening while having their assigned disabilities. My wife and I drew "able bodied" and felt a bit left out. It was interesting how we self selected to stand on the margins of the rest of the group, as it felt more comfortable. Seems like inclusiveness and understanding of one another takes effort sometimes.
Muffy's gear. The bike on the left she won gold with. The small chair is for tennis, the other chair is a "running" chair for parasport running races. She also has a mountain bike. Jeff, her husband, has a masters in recreational therapy, and is a wizard/MacGyver at keeping her gear running. He works in the field as well with both local disabled and visiting vets receiving therapy to re-engage with life.
@Tig , here's some cool gear for ya.
And a gold medal bike.
I feel like a schmo when I compare myself to this group. My wife has been going, but I frankly have been burned out on the whole thing, and only attended last night because it was next door. I now feel inspired to do what I can.
So, let's share things we can do.
A couple of my thoughts,
Take care of one's self. From a combination of some personal family stuff and this whole political thing the last couple years, (and who knows, maybe some older stuff) I found myself depressed and anxious and not being my best self. I had to seek some help, which I did thankfully. Take care of yourself. I find this stuff stressful, and no one is good to anyone if they aren't taking care of themselves physically, mentally, spiritually if you are so inclined, etc.
Find a group and pitch in.
Just be nice or do nice as
@Johnny N. says.
Speak up/Stand up for others.
As I said, I am no expert. Solidarity as a group here is what I am hoping for, and retrieving more ideas of how to be a positive force in our own realms of influence. Hopefully all of us here can agree on that much. Better than just bitching about it. IMO.
