Sometimes it is better to say nothing than to say anything.
Words have consequences.
If you call your boss an idiot, you may get fired, or at the very least,
marginalized.
If you shout at a driver in a car that has cut you off or
made it impossible for you to merge into a lane of traffic, you invite road
rage.
If you raise your voice with your child, you’re making the
kind of memories that may require years of therapy to undo – for both of you.
And if you argue with your spouse in a mean-spirited way, you
can leave bruises on your heart.
Yesterday, a very close friend and I sparred – at times
angrily – over the truly harsh invective, abdication of responsibility and lack
of leadership on the part of our federal government and its
representatives. Before our “discussion”
spun out of control, we took a breath, walked our comments back a bit (but not
a lot), then agreed to disagree so we could go about our business for the rest
of the day. Although my friend and I have
often viewed politics in very different ways, our 2-decade old relationship
matters to us both so we try not to test it too often.
Now I’m not Queen of the World, or even mistress of my own destiny
most of the time…but I do know that sometimes you have to put the rhetorical
bullshit aside to move head and get the task at hand done. You don’t always like the job you are given
to do, or the person you are doing it with or for, but there you go -- that’s
life. And no one ever said it was going
to be easy.
It’s time for our elected officials to put the rhetorical
bullshit aside and do the job we sent them to do, as distasteful as it may seem
to many of them: to protect and defend this
great country by serving our collective interests through compromise and
commitment to the greater good.
There is dangerous kabuki theatre playing out in our
nation’s capital this month, and I pray to God cooler heads prevail. Until then, I guess I’ll remain, like many of
you, speechless. For now.
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