I walked through Grand Central last week and watched them building the shops for the holiday market. I glanced down at my phone and reminded myself it was still only October. It struck me as so curious that the holiday season is already upon us, and that every year it seems to arrive a little earlier.
This season gives us comfort, ritual, and excitement.
It also brings worry, stress, overwhelm, and sadness. I'll write a holiday post when we get closer to the heart of the season, but this moment stayed with me.
Why do we keep reaching for the holidays sooner?
Why are we breaking out our scented candles and cozy decorations, and making plans for family gatherings?
I tend to think it's because we are hungry for permission to suspend the everyday, even briefly, and allow ourselves to focus on the good. We are doing the same thing with our summer, stretching it as long as we can, savoring every golden drop, extending our last swims and final summer Fridays.
In fact, many of us have only just put away the shorts and bathing suits and pulled out our sweaters, and already we're rushing past our brief fall interlude toward the lights.
We seem to be holding on to the magic of every season because we need the magic. And that tells me we are a little bit adrift.
So what are we looking for, and what do we need?
I don't write about partisan politics here. I don't like to or want to, and I don't think this is the forum for it. But here is what I can speak to.
I work with people all day long, most days. I love my patients, and truthfully I don't know for certain what their politics are. Some I do, but many I don't.
And here is what I know: I care about them all equally.
I value them.
I know their stories and the characters in their lives.
I know that they want to love and be loved.
I feel their moral caliber, their desire to be good people, and the full spectrum of their emotions. I know that their friendships and families are dear to them, and that they are inherently good.
I hear their worries about their kids and their stress about the future.
I hear them juggling screen time, knowing they're working too hard, feeling sad about being single, or struggling in an unhappy marriage.
None of these things, the most important issues in their lives, have anything to do with voting blue or red.
Because politics usually isn't what the therapy room is for, I get to see something every single day that is easy to forget: people are people. We want the same things. We care about each other, and we all want to be valued and respected.
This division between us is built on highlighting our differences. It whispers in our ears that differences are bad, even evil, when I believe at my core that our differences are something to celebrate.
Framing difference as evil is corrosive.
It's like having thirty days of sunshine and one cloudy day, and having the audacity to complain about the weather. For the most part, we want the same things. We want our joy. We want our friendships. We want our kids to grow up with a sense of security. We want to feel that we are being led with moral competence, and that what truly matters, our relationships and our goodness, is honored and exalted.
The truth is, we can agree to disagree. In fact, discourse makes us stronger. It makes us more interesting and increasingly thoughtful. Our natural disagreements will not shake my belief that we have far more in common than we don't.
I believe in humanity, in kindness and in goodness.
And I am tired of feeling like I have to choose a side, when the sides so often feel much more rigid than the people in them. The time has come for our politics to be about bringing us together instead of pulling us apart.
We deserve to be able to have each other, to disagree, and still feel like we are on the same side. So close your eyes and listen to the voices of the people leading us. Not the colors or the party lines, but the words.
Follow the voice that speaks the way you want to be spoken to, the one that gives you the greatest sense of pride and allows you to feel that you are good and your intentions are for good.
At the end of the day, that is what will let me rest easy. Forget the parties and the allegiances. Regardless of the team they are playing for, I am following the voice.
Will you join me?
Get to KnowDr. Danielle Shelov
Dr. Shelov's therapeutic approach emphasizes understanding individuals within the context of their families, childhood experiences, relationships, and larger systems as crucial to psychological treatment.
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