What Matters Most To Me

If you’re finding it difficult to feel any calm before Tuesday’s electoral storm, it may be helpful to reflect on what truly matters most to us.

Personally, I’m reflecting on November 2, 2004. Though it was twenty years ago, it’s still emotionally fresh in my mind. It was election day in America. It was also the day my mother passed away unexpectedly.

Regretfully, I wasn’t there for her. Instead of cradling her during those last breaths of life, I was busy doing my “civic duty,” unaware she was dying. Every presidential election since has haunted me with painful details of that saddest day in my life, allowing me to again reflect on what matters most.

It’s possible that what matters most to me may also be what matters most to all Americans, but we won’t hear about that on the news. It’s just not news, and if it were, it’s not exciting enough to provoke or rattle us and keep us glued to our screens. News outlets, by choice, are not in the business of being warm and fuzzy. So we alone must remind ourselves that it’s family that matters most to the majority of Americans, and savoring the joy we feel in the company of loved ones is not only healing, but keeps us feeling safe in this world.

The news media instead tells us the economy is what matters most, opining on which candidate would do a better job. And they neglect to mention that the vast majority of American voters are not political animals or activists at all. We are instead caregivers, parents, siblings, grandparents, coworkers, students, and friends who are too busy or smart to get riled up by the latest outrageous provocation. If all hell breaks loose, most of us won’t be participating in rolling guillotines into place.

What matters most is taking care of each other. As human beings, it’s our mission. Having trust and faith in each other makes that mission possible and overrules all the noise any election throws at us, especially if someone we love is in trouble.

Though our hearts dwell in our community of loved ones, it doesn’t minimize the value of any election. It instead demonstrates that love grounds us, nurtures, and warm us. Chaos, however, attracts us, fragments, and unsettles us.

If we are divided, it’s because we’ve lost touch with what matters most. This predicament blinds us to our need for each other and, subsequently, withers our bonds of faithfulness toward each other. It’s so easy now to dismiss each other, but in doing so, we lose touch with reality.

The reality is, we can always do more for each other than any political candidate can ever do for us. This is the truth we must reconnect with and embrace fully once more.

Ninety-nine years ago, Mohandas Gandhi spoke of the seven sins he felt were root causes for all that spoiled life in India. Today, it pretty much sums up what spoils life in America, too.

Politics without principles
Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Science witout humanity
Worship without sacrifice

These seven sins disrupt the quality of our lives, from the air we breathe to the price of food on our plates, to a global economy that’s in the process of replacing meaningful human labor with cost-saving bots. It is these sins we should be battling over with our elected officials instead of pointing fingers or guns at each other. Understanding these sins and doing what we can to prevent them going forward is what gives me the most hope for our future.