There’s always a choice

There are many things in the world that we really have no control over. And there are a whole lot of things that we really have no influence over either. Wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine are out of control and influence. What we want to happen really doesn’t matter. No one is consulting with us about these things and how they should be “resolved.” Resolved is a generous term for such things. There’s been so much death and destruction. You can’t really fix any part of it and make it better.

In the US we have an election coming up. There will be millions upon millions of people voting and there will be a variety of results. It’s not just a presidential election. We have elections for all sorts of offices this year — federal and state. And we each get one vote. And depending on where you are, that vote might not make much of a difference in the outcome in your state. These elections cause a great deal of anxiety for many people — concerned about the outcome and who might be in positions of power and what that might mean. We really don’t have control over the outcome, and we really don’t have much influence. We should certainly vote. I’m not arguing from a standpoint of all is hopeless. Voting is something in your power to exercise. We just don’t get to determine what the outcome is.

Big things like war and national elections have a way of occupying our attention. And because they are so big, they remind us that we really have no control. They are so big that they remain abstract and keep us in a state of anxiety with all the uncertainty about…