Have you considered the mindset that you will have on Wednesday, November 9, the day after the election? You have a choice—you can mindlessly repeat the pundits’ sound bytes and the unsavory words that characterize this election. You can disengage—walk away—with a wave of “whatever.” Or you can choose to wake up from the year-and-a-half-long election process and focus on creating a future that you want to live in.
You have a very important choice to make that will affect your mood, your integrity and your productivity. Start by being present and available to your family, friends and colleagues. In the spirit of “getting there and staying there,” ask questions that haven’t been asked before about the issues, values and the future you want for yourself, friends, family and colleagues. Actively choose mindfulness over being mindless—you will wake up! Choose to be present, actively notice new things and you will notice that you are more “you” again with a fertile opportunity to say what matters.
I am in the same boat as you. I may even be in a worse state because it seems that I have been sleepwalking the last three days. I am eager to make what I say matter by initiating conversations that have the possibility of heralding the world that I want: I share a conversation that Werner Erhard originated: “A world that works for everyone with no one or nothing left out.” Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?
Here are a few quotations that may spark your new conversation
“Our task must be to widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Albert Einstein
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller
“The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed” 
–Mahatma Gandhi
“Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
Yes, November 8, 2016, is an important event but equally important is what you—we—say and choose to do going forward. I am not asking you to walk away from the dynamics and the emotional zenith of election night. I am inviting you to switch the channel, take a different path.
Begin now: Pause, breathe and consider the conversations that you will entertain and give weight too. Imagine switching channels from before the election and now after the election. Or you can imagine following WAZE to navigate a less trafficked path. Continue the switch by having conversations about the things that you are for—not what you are against. Choose mindfully and remember to: “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”