My decision for the top of the ticket for this election is made and it isn’t even a close call. Presumably I should settle back into the easy chair of identity and marinate in a quiet consoling rage as I hear about people who are undecided or voting in the other column. What am I missing here? Since this post is a contrived conversation with myself I will speculate on the answer to my own question.

I am missing the fact that I don’t understand the process of at least half of this nation. I once said to an employee sorting through supervision and leadership issues: “its not enough to be right”. If I am right, than how can every other person on the nation’s streets be wrong? Moreover, whats wrong with being right? Like I said, I will try to answer my own questions so here goes.

The sense of being right is a paved road to complacency. The task of understanding involves solving the problems of relationship through engagement, questioning and letting the other’s answers challenge one’s own personal pact with the world one lives in. We are, none of us, ‘right’. We are all an imperfect process. Our ‘neighbor’ cannot be the ‘neighbor’ we love if the differences between us are barriers. The Sense of Good is more than the sense of rightness. Complacency in a world as troubled as the one we currently live in could be called a sin in some religious traditions. Yes, I will vote but even if my vote is the nation’s choice, the ‘win’ won’t be a victory but only a bit of traction in shifting the nation’s actions toward a better world for children and grandchildren. No, I need to do the work of deeply understanding the differences with my neighbors to grow into the next better world.