The Divided State of America
I am a Johnny Cash song.
The keynote business will do that to you.
In the last few years, I’ve been fortunate to travel the country from Fargo to Florida. I’ve sat down with San Antonians and Kansas Citians. I’ve broken bread with Trump lovers and Trump haters. And what I can confidently say, from sitting with America, is that all of the above have one feeling in common: fear.
Some fear, “more layoffs.”
Some fear, “less in my retirement fund.”
Some fear, “more gun control”
Some fear, “less of my country looking like me.”
More or less…
We fear. We scare easily. We’re afraid.
If someone doesn’t look like us, we fear. If someone doesn’t behave like us, we scare. If someone doesn’t dress like us, we get afraid. There’s a reason your internal operating system is called your, “Central Nervous System”:
Central = At your core Nervous = In the middle of all your thoughts: nervousness System = Your operating system
(Our standard operating system is nervousness.)
As we slog towards more bad news (recession, inflation, election), it has never been more clear that we are afraid of the “other side”. We are the Divided States of America. Where only two-in-ten Americans say they trust our government in Washington to do what is right while, presently, two-thirds of America thinks we’re more divided as a country than usual:
It sure does feel like an unprecedented time in America. Even the birth rate across the country is down — not due to the next generation not wanting the responsibility of children but because so many are unsettled about the doom and gloom forecast of our cloudy future.
We continue to yell over one another. We remain frustrated by each other. We’ve trained the algorithms to serve up solely our point of view. We’ve blocked, cancelled or unsubscribed anyone that threatens our beliefs.
What we desperately need to do? Put in the work to better understand each other.
Ever the optimist — which I acknowledge you could matador from the tone of this post — I do have faith in humanity. Almost thirty years to this very day, Rodney King professed, “Can we all just get along?”
My ask is simple: Bodyjump into the person on the other side. Stay curious. Listen more. Check your assumptions. Find common ground — which is almost impossible to do when you’ve already convinced yourself that the other person is on another side.
Addressing vs suppressing fear starts with willing conversations. Find a neighbor or a coworker on the “other side” and try to understand the divide. My hunch? When you do, you’ll discover we’re all more alike than not.
