We Don't Listen Anymore; Now We Are Paying For It.

Many sit in disbelief, and remain in shock of Tuesdays results and ask how and why.  They ask themselves how can America be this stupid, this racist, this divided?

At the same time, there are many people, good people, hardworking people, people who share the same exact values as those others, who sit in relief and celebrate.  

Pisha! my liberal friends say.  Well then ask yourself this…..Do you think every Muslim is a terrorist?  No? How about a majority? No again, right? Then how can you say that every Trump supporter is a racist?  Or even a majority of them are? You can’t, because many of them are the same people who not only put our first African American in office, but re-elected him.  Many of them are of Latino descent, and many of them are black. More of those two groups voted for Trump, than did Mitt Romney. That is an indisputable  fact.

So how can this be?  As we sift through the autopsy of this election, talking heads are asking that same question over and over again.

The answer is simple really.  We don’t listen. We heard different things from each of the candidates.  We heard what we wanted, and ignored, or didn’t believe what we chose not to.  And that is the problem with our society today.  We don’t hear each other. We don’t ask questions, and all we want to do is vomit our own points, either with memes or platitudes.

Insert Platitude Here…..

I know many wonderful people who didn’t hear what Clinton supporters heard.  They didn’t hear the attacks on women, they didn’t hear the attacks on minorities, they didn’t hear the attacks on the disabled.  And Clinton supporters didn’t hear the pain and struggles people feel, they chose not to hear the lack of empathy of the Democratic Party, they chose to hear only the big philosophies. They didn't hear the anger, and they didn't hear the lack of trust in their candidate.

We are all guilty of pulling out the tidbits to make our argument.  We need to start listening and learning to use the steps of listening, which means paying attention, be interested in what the other person is saying, ask questions, and be aware of your own opinions and how that might affect how you are interpreting what that other person is saying.

All of this is difficult when the only way we communicate now, is through Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and other social media formats.  But we must.

This is the only way we can end the divisiveness, it is the only way we can rebuild, and it is the only way we can continue.