We Must Save Ourselves

Today is a pivotal moment in our history. Many of us have called this the most consequential election of our lifetime. We’re not wrong.

But here’s the truth: this is so much more than a presidential election. In fact, no matter what happens today, you will wake up on Wednesday morning, and you will still need to be ready to fight the good fight – for justice, for integrity, for a kinder and more compassionate country for all of us.

Regardless of who wins the Oval Office or the House or Senate, we will still wake up tomorrow with the same problems we have today: racial injustice, systemic ills, divisiveness and national discord. The last four years have uncovered an America that no one really wanted to see: a dark underbelly of hatred, racism, misogyny and terror that has been emboldened to take a glaring center stage. A grotesque display that the vast majority of us never imagined could happen in our country.

We were blinded, but now we can’t look away.

Unfortunately, this America will still exist on Wednesday. People will still be hungry, hurting, seeking shelter, medical help and refuge. We will still be staring down the barrel of a relentless pandemic and a fragile economy. More than 225,000 American lives lost and millions of people out of work.

The significance of this moment isn’t just about flipping Presidents, Senate seats and districts. While there is certainly so much that hangs in the balance legislatively on this particular day, the reality is that the stakes have always been high. We just got a painful wakeup call over the last four years from a reality television star turned President, a deadly pandemic, video footage of black bodies being brutally murdered by law enforcement, images of children in cages, separated from their parents, and increasingly loud warning sirens from climate scientists about our planet’s impending doom.

Today we have the opportunity to use our voices – to do the one thing that levels the playing field for everyone: we get to vote. We get to have our say on the things that are most meaningful to us. With cautious optimism – and dare I say, hope – we get to pull the lever and mark the ballot, a freedom and a duty that perhaps we once took for granted.

Today, we get to see that we make a difference. But the truth is, we have this option every single day of our lives. Our problems and injustices won’t disappear once the election results roll in. In fact, it’s just beginning.

We get to decide every day if we will be the changemakers and light bringers and agents of equity and justice. Yes, we must exercise our voting privilege and elect ethical, empathetic and moral leaders who will facilitate change and propel us in the right direction. But we also need to see the daily opportunities we have to be the helpers, the healers, the activists and the allies.

We get to choose whether we will lead with empathy, compassion and kindness or rather, stick our heads back in the sand and ignore our collective trauma at our own peril.

So yes, today matters. But so does tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that.

We the people must save ourselves.