Three Things I Know Right Now

This article originally appeared in the July 22, 2024 edition of The Preamble.

I am writing to you from the airport, waiting to board a flight home. My phone is buzzing with so many incoming messages that I can’t even use it normally, lest I hit one of the incoming messages inadvertently. 

By far, the most common sentiments I am seeing are fear and anxiety. It doesn’t even matter who you’re intending to vote for in November, this is still a time of significant apprehension. 

Here are three things I know:

1. Apprehension is normal. It does not mean the world is falling apart. Do you know what the framers of the Constitution had in spades? Apprehension. They had many conversations amongst themselves about whether or not their experiment would even work out. Hamilton, for example, feared that democracy would fail and America would fall into anarchy and despotism. 

Apprehension is the normal human response to experiencing something new and unknown, especially if they perceive the stakes are high. You’re not doing life wrong if this is how you feel. 

2. Tumultuous times generally precede important change. This has happened over and over throughout history. If everything is going smoothly and you wake each morning to sunny skies, there is no motivation to change anything. 

Tumultuous times preceded the American revolution, the end of enslavement and the passage of the 14th amendment, women’s suffrage, and the Civil Rights era.

Did people alive in the 1860s look around and say, “I just feel really great about these 750,000 dead people and the fact that the president was just shot?” Most assuredly not. And yet, we can all now agree that the important change that came about from the tumultuous times (the end of enslavement) was necessary and for the better. 

3. Americans have lived through many unprecedented times and come out the other side. For example: the War of 1812: The British burned the White House and the Capitol. Imagine a scenario in which a foreign power invades us and torches our government buildings today. And yet, we survived that.

The Great Depression of the 1930s. Do you know how many people were homeless as a result of the Great Depression? Two million. That’s more than three times as many people as are experiencing homelessness today, and the country was much smaller in the 1930s. We survived that too.

Two world wars. Both unprecedented. Pearl Harbor. The September 11th attacks. Unprecedented.

I could keep going here, but you get the idea. This is a young country, and we have already been through it.

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In the great sweep of history, changing political candidates a short time before an election will be noted. But it is unlikely to even rank among the most unprecedented of unprecedented times. 

We are going to make it. 

And now, you might be thinking: But Sharon, I don’t feel hopeful. 

And to that, I say: That’s fine. Because hope is not a feeling.

If you’re waiting for a feeling of hope to envelop your heart, you’re probably going to keep on waiting. 

If you’re looking for a sign, you might keep on looking. 

If you think hope is the logical conclusion of a rational decision, you can just keep on typing numbers into your spreadsheet. 

That’s because hope is not a feeling. Hope is a choice. 

This is excellent news, because you no longer have to feel discouraged about your lack of positive feelings.

Remember that Hamilton did not have positive feelings. He had feelings of fear. But he chose to have hope, despite there being absolutely no rational evidence that the American experiment was going to work out. 

And here we are, 248 years later, having lived through dozens of unprecedented times. Having normal human emotions about tumultuous times that generally precede important change.

Hamilton, I think, would be relieved that he wasn’t alone in his apprehensions. And so pleased to see that the experiment he set into motion is still standing. And will still be standing tomorrow. 

Let me close with the words of Abraham Lincoln. Words we should remember in this moment:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”