In times of despair — and for some of us, this morning is just such a time — I think the most important thing is this: Don't be self-destructive. I know people, and it's a mistake I have made myself, who deal with bad news by compounding it; by wallowing in it and letting it impede all the positive things they could otherwise be doing.
Sometimes, it's a retreat into drugs or drink. Sometimes, it's just to let that black cloud overshadow all aspects of their lives. Of many examples that come to mind, I'm thinking of a friend who lost his wife and immediately plunged into a mindset of "Nothing else is ever going to go right in my life." And by God, he did his best to make that true. It wasn't just the alcohol. It was the neglect of taking care of himself — his health, his hygiene, everything.
Here's just one item on very long list of self-destructive mistakes: He stopped opening his mail. He stopped due to a fear that there might be bad news in there somewhere and he'd convinced himself his system couldn't handle one more shot of bad news. Naturally, not opening his mail meant that he didn't pay his bills, didn't read letters that might have helped him in certain ways. By so doing, he created a whole new tier of unnecessary problems for himself.
You and I and everyone have seen elections not go the way we thought was clearly the right way. It happens in these fragile (at times) things called Democracies. We survived them, even one involving the same (we believe) wrong choice. Nothing you can do about it. Nothing anybody can do about it.
But you can make things worse for yourself if you stop doing the things you need to do every day to survive. Today, I need to write an assignment for a project that it would be foolish of me to screw up. That would be very easy to do if I sulked and pouted and went back to bed…and it wouldn't make things better for anyone, especially me. Admittedly, I have less to worry about than some people but I can still compartmentalize my concern for those other people and devote sufficient attention to the things I can do something about…like finishing that script.
I think I'll post this and then go work on that script. And later on, I'll find a very silly video link to post here. And look at the bright side of what happened yesterday: At least we probably won't have to vote anymore.
(That's a joke. We will vote. And it won't always turn out the way we like but as I said, that's what happens in Democracies.)