If you know me at all you know that I do not like to discuss politics. I do not tell the people I live with or in my friend group who I am voting for and I do not take part in political discussions. It isn't that I don't have opinions or beliefs or thoughts about it, but for me it is highly personal and not something that I want to try to convince other people of. I feel the exact same way about my spiritual beliefs. I have beliefs and they are very important and personal to me, but I do not walk around confronting people about their beliefs-same with politics.

I didn't want to write this article on the election, everything in me is saying don't do it, but it wants to be written so here it goes.

I am grateful for this election and I understand that that sounds crazy. Sometimes things happen and we think it is the worst thing that we can imagine for our lives. We think why us? Why this? Does it have to be this way? The answer is that sometimes the things that happen in life that disturb us the most happen to teach us something.

This election, for me, has been an opportunity to hold a mirror up to myself and ask myself some hard questions about me. I think that this election can be a chance for us all to hold the mirror up and ask ourselves if we like what we see.

I know what you're thinking now, here is the fun part where I get to vent about all those other people and what I don't like about them and how they make me feel and how I'm right and they are wrong. But it doesn't work that way. The mirror can only point back at us. Funny thing about life, I'm only in charge of mine. I cannot change anything in this world but myself. In changing myself I can be an example and an inspiration to others but I cannot force anything upon anyone else.

So for me this election has forced me to ask myself things like what do I believe to be true and how do I get to the truth?

How informed am I?

Do I trust people who haven't earned it?

Do I turn a blind eye to some things so that I can get what I want?

What am I most afraid of and what behaviors do I exhibit when I'm afraid?

Would I rather assume I'm right rather than questioning myself and having to change?

Do I allow bad behavior in myself and others?

What do I value and is it worth what I think it is?

Am I a hypocrite? Do I say one thing and do another?

Do I condone things if they benefit me and condem things because they don't?

Am I selfish?

Do I have empathy for others and can I put myself in their shoes and imagine life from their perspective?

Can I listen to an opposing view without making that person wrong?

Do I accept reality only when it suits and comforts me?

These are hard questions and I don't like having to ask them of myself but I know that if something is disturbing me that only I can change it. It is never outside me, it is never those other people, it is me. They say when you point a finger at someone else, there are four more pointing back at you. I've also heard it said that what disturbs you most about someone else is probably something you are denying in yourself or in your life.

For me this election has been a disturbing reminder that I cannot trust my fate and my life to anyone else. I cannot sleepwalk through life thinking that someone else can be in charge and I can just be on autopilot. I have the responsibility to be the best me I can be in the face of anything that life throws at me. I can be kind, informed, involved, aware, emptathetic, and non-judgemental. I need to be aware of what is important to me but understand that it may be different for the person standing next to me, and that is okay. One of us doesn't have to be wrong and one of us doesn't have to be right, but that we could be respectful enough of each other that we could decide what we could give towards a middle ground.

I want to be able to look in the mirror and see a flawed human that needs to look at herself and her behaviors and attitudes. I hope it will make me think twice about how ugly I look when I take that finger and point it at another just to make them wrong. How ugly it looks when I allow bad behavior that I know is wrong to take place because it might give me what I want or allow me to be lazy. We are having the opportunity to watch the ugliness play out on our televisions. We can accept it as a gift, a mirror to ourselves and decide if we want to take personal responsibility for some of the ugly we may be contributing to the world or allowing in our own life. For me, challenge accepted.