2,500 Americans broke into the Capitol building on January 6th last year.
1 in 130,000.
To put that in perspective, 1 in 17,000 Americans murdered someone in 2021, and 1 in 600 people slept on the street on any given night.
All of which is to say, we pick and choose the stories we tell about who we are. We’re clearly not a country of murderers, any more than we’re a country of homeless. We look past those sides of ourselves, despite what they say about the place we call home.
Why can’t we do that with January 6th? A few thousand sick and deluded people broke the law, at the encouragement of a smaller number of sick and deluded politicians. Yet last week we picked our scabs and re-opened the wounds of that day. Instead of letting justice run its course and put those responsible in jail, we added to the mess: a media frenzy, candlelight vigil and further pointless disagreement. What led to it, why it happened, who did what.
Even worse, we engaged in hypotheticals and useless semantics. What if the Democrats were the ones who contested the election? What about the other protests last year? What if there had been more security at the Capitol? Should we call it an insurrection, a coup or something else?
Parallels have even been drawn to 9/11. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether the comparison is appropriate, but what I do know is that 9/11 did not define us – our response did. We were not a country of trauma victims, but a country of survivors. Fast forward to today and all I can think is that we seem far less resilient in the face of a much, much smaller trauma.
The question we should be asking is: What now? The only thing we can control is how we move forward. We can keep rehashing the ifs and buts. We can keep letting the day divide us. Or we can accept the ugliness for what it was and move on.
Even more important: What can we learn from this situation that applies to our own lives? We might not have control over our politicians and media, but maybe the mess we see on the national stage looks a lot like something closer to home.
Where are we refusing to let go of disagreements?
Where are we letting one sliver of ugliness define us?
A few weeks ago I brought up an argument with Anne that we’d long put behind us, and she said something we’ve all felt at one point or another: “I might actually agree with you at this point, but now I’m just annoyed to be talking about this.” We waste time and energy with loved ones trying to convince them of something we believe. Maybe it’s better to just move on.
And then I can’t stop thinking of this Cheryl Strayed passage, from her Dear Sugar column The Bad Things You Did:
The narratives we create in order to justify our actions and choices become in so many ways who we are. They are the things we say back to ourselves to explain our complicated lives. Perhaps the reason you’ve not yet been able to forgive yourself is that you’re still invested in your self-loathing… Would you be a better or worse person if you forgave yourself for the bad things you did?
What in your life are you refusing to let go? What one event do you continue to let define you?
Obsession over the past makes it impossible to move forward.
– Emmett
What I’m Reading:
10 Things to Love About America – Peggy Noonan, WSJ
“The past few years, maybe decades, we’ve become an increasingly self-damning people. As a nation we harry ourselves into a state of permanent depression over our failures and flaws and what we imagine, because we keep being told, is the innate wickedness of our system, which keeps justice from happening and life from being good.”
Inflation: Should We Be Worried? – Mr. Money Mustache
“The magic of economics is that in the long run, prices for almost anything compete themselves all the way down to the point where it is barely profitable to make a product. And this is why over time, life keeps getting cheaper and our standard of living keeps rising. Despite the fact that inflation keeps happening in the background.”
Finding Ultra – Rich Roll
What I’m Listening To:
Jonathan Field: Finding Meaning In Work and Life – Rich Roll Podcast
“Happiness is the snapshot. Meaning is the movie.”