By: Shari Dalton
My daughter has been very interested in the election this year, which I think is great and it really had me stepping up my game in our research on issues. It was important for me, as her mother, for her to know that regardless of the choices she would make, she always needed to be educated about her options and not just run with whatever her best friend was doing.
She came home from school with questions all the time about the election and the candidates. We talked about things like bullying and why Donald Trump seemed so mean to people sometimes. And we talked about why Hillary Clinton “wants to kill babies” and what her husband did when he was President that made everyone so mad that they didn’t want to vote for Hillary. Yes, at 8 years old, these are the questions I’m confronted with. We talked about forgiveness and the Golden Rule quite a bit.
But yesterday was different. When I picked her up from school, she had the biggest smile and couldn’t wait to show me her “I voted” sticker. They had held a school election and she couldn’t wait to give me all the details…like how Hillary had 1 kid and Donald had “like 5 or something” or how she was born in 1946 and he was born in 1947. So when I finally asked, “so who did you vote for” I was taken aback when she said… “I’m not telling you Mom”.
You see, this was a very big deal and a very private matter to her. And I respect that. She said that she didn’t want people to know who she voted for because she didn’t want to have anyone change their minds just because of her choices. And she didn’t care to know who anyone else voted for either. She made a decision based on how SHE felt about it. She said, “neither person would make a great President, I just hope whoever wins makes good choices when they move into the White House.”
And she is absolutely right….at the end of the day, we can just hope that good choices are made. She got up this morning, got ready for school and off she went. She had things to do today and spending time on something that was no longer in her control wasn’t one of them.
You see, today, right this second, it doesn’t matter who our President is. There isn’t a President dead or alive that could dictate how we wake up and choose to take on the day. We control our actions, we control our emotions. And as a business owner, I can choose to sit and ponder the next 4 years, or I just to get down to business this morning. Because the last time I checked, the President doesn’t write checks to pay my bills.
It’s a little scary what the next couple of months hold for our industry. It’s no secret that the first matter of business when Trump crosses the threshold is repealing Obamacare. The Affordable Care Act has been good for our industry…so what will happen next? Who knows? But what I do know is that it doesn’t dictate how hard we decide to work today. It didn’t dictate how hard those of us who worked through the recession, worked during that time.
So please, regardless of who you voted for, take it from my 8-year old…take a deep breath, get your shit together and focus on the things that matter to you and your life today. Focus on tomorrow, tomorrow. Today, stay focused on what you can control.
