Member-only story
How Do We Get Along After All Of This?
Given the state of the world as it is today, I suspect that many of us are wrestling with some version of the same difficult question:
“How do I live my life alongside people- family, friends, co-workers, even strangers!- who have said and/or done things that I find deeply questionable?”
For some, this might be an overstatement, while the sentiment remains true. For others (myself included), it might be a wildly understated feeling. While division and polarization have always been a present reality, current events seemed to have upped the stakes, exposing deeper and more dangerous differences than some of us thought were present.
An obvious example in life during the COVID pandemic. Whether it be government mandates or personal expectations, because the stakes were so high (health and life), the heat was turned up on differences of opinion. Combine that with the (assumed) temporary nature of the pandemic, it gave many people a sense of license to speak up more forcefully than they might otherwise have done. And this is saying nothing of the countless other dynamics at play that especially divide us these days.
Over the last few weeks, I have had several conversations with people about this problem…