This Pretty Much Sums It Up

My friend Bill from Rochester forwarded me an essay by his friend Steve Roberts. It pretty much sums up my own opinions on politics as of late. Bill said he didn't think Steve would mind if I posted it on the site, so I figured I would share it with you...

It Breaks My Heart To Vote
By Steve Roberts

My son Peter became a bank robber so that he wouldn't die from his addiction to crack. Robbing a bank was the only way he knew to get himself off the street and off the pipe. His options, as he saw them, were jail or death.

Such is the power of despair.

I hired a lawyer for him. Fortunately, Peter was a first-time offender who had carried no weapon and didn't threaten anyone. Prosecutors see guys like him all the time: Technically a criminal; in reality, a drug addict. The lawyer negotiated a deal where, instead of hard time, Peter was sentenced to a six-month drug rehab "boot camp." He completed the "boot camp" and was paroled. Within a few weeks he started using again, and to support his habit robbed a couple more banks.

Such is the power of addiction.

This time I hired no lawyer. Being a recovering alcoholic myself, I knew that things often have to get worse before there is even a chance they'll get better. Few choices have been more painful than surrendering the desire to intervene on behalf of my child. All I can do is be present and loving as Peter makes his own choice to live or die. And the only way I can really be present and loving is to forgive myself for times when my addictions have killed my life.

What does this have to do with voting?

I feel the same way about my nation as I feel about my son. It is a pain that is especially acute when it comes to electing a president. As George Carlin says, we're a great country, but a strange culture. It breaks my heart to vote. Part of me feels that no matter who I vote for, I am basically enabling our cultural addiction to blame, intolerance and denial. I feel that, to a far greater degree than is useful, the left and right of American politics are two sides of the same coin called bigot. To me, a bigot is someone who makes no room for another.

As a result, we give birth to presidential candidates whose primary quality is not the ability to bring forth the inherent greatness of America's diversity, but rather is someone whose overriding attribute is pandering to our addictions. Our addiction to see the world simplistically. Our addiction to blame others for our pain. Our addiction to deny the connectedness of everyone on the planet. Our addiction to the belief that it is possible to create a "safe" world without growing our capacity to love. To name just a few.

How could it be otherwise? Our presidents are merely reflections of ourselves.

I pray that my son reaches a place of such utter despair that he says, "I will do anything never to be here again." I just hope that, should he say it, it isn't with his dying breath. Likewise, I pray that we as a culture will awaken ever more fully to the harm caused by our addictions - and do so before freedom and equality are considered luxuries.

It breaks my heart that my vote will be construed as support for a particular candidate or ideology.

When Bruce Springsteen kicked off the Vote for Change tour, he said, "We're here tonight to fight for a government that is open, rational, forward-looking and humane, and we're going to rock the joint while doing so." That's what I'd like my vote to stand for - including the rock the joint part but unlike Mr. Springsteen, I don't feel that, as a culture, we create presidential candidates who can actually be the agent of such inspired common sense.

I will vote in this election for what may seem a very strange reason. The pain of it will remind me that making America healthier is only incidentally about who is president, and absolutely about who am I. As Gandhi says, we must be the change we wish to bring about in others. Only by forgiving myself for the ways in which my own addictions have killed my life can I truly serve my nation by being present and loving regardless of the insane choices we all contribute to.

Steve Roberts lives in Johnson, VT. He is a ghostwriter of memoirs, as well as a strategist and mentor of leaders, and can be found on the Web at CoolMindWarmHeart.com