The holidays are quickly approaching and with them, especially this year, bring discussions of politics. Experts have suggested the people have a solitary Thanksgiving if they don’t care for the way their parents or other guests around the Thanksgiving table voted. OK, that’s the good thing about our country; we all have the right to say and do what we please. People are hurting, concerned, scared, anxious, confused, etc. about the election results and therefore, want to skip visiting the family members or former friends who don’t quite see things their way. Again, OK, that’s their right.
In my corporate Human Resources days I used to give Leadership and Teambuilding training classes. Human behavior type as well. One of the concepts that I clearly remember is this. The world/ companies/departments/communities/families cannot exist if we were all leaders or if we were all followers. In other words, if we were all the same. If that were the case, the leaders would be setting goals or planning strategically without anyone to do the actual work. Conversely, if the world/companies/etc. were exclusively followers, nothing would ever get done because there would be no focus, no planning, and no direction. In between the leader and the follower are other types of people and behaviors and when all of them are combined, great things happen. Goals are met. It’s diversity of style and it’s what make people, "people" and not “cookie-cutter” mannequins.
This same concept holds true for personality types. Usually there are the leaders, the communicators, the worker bees, and those that ensure that the work is done properly. Here again, without all four types, plans wouldn’t be made, targets wouldn’t be reached, and things would generally be a mess. Everyone needs to work together to make things happen.
To get back to Thanksgiving. What will refusing to speak with your family or friends who don’t think like you, get you? It gets you absolutely nothing but more hurt. You have an opinion and so do they. Your opinion doesn’t make you a bad person but neither does their opinion make them bad. This is where civil discourse comes in. Voting one way does not automatically put a person in a box (the leader or the follower the right or the left). Without their (or your) train of thought there could not be discussion, teamwork, listening, understanding and love.
So, as we say in yoga, “You do you.” Your family or friends may be bewildered by your choice of not being with them this holiday but hopefully there will be a next year and another reason to get together, forgive one another (and yourself) and move on. Hopefully. Life is too short.
Ben Rector The Thanksgiving Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwaxNPY5nIY