Note: Although I do write about my response to the recent election here, this is not a partisan post. I wrote it for humans, not for Democrats or Republicans.

         When Joe Biden was declared President-Elect on Saturday morning, the first emotion I felt was great relief. Then, as the day progressed and the news began to sink in, I began to feel more and more joyful, despite the fact that neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris was my first choice during the primaries.

         When I listened to their speeches on Saturday night, I found myself crying. I felt so moved that this long campaign was finally over. Watching these two new leaders’ faces as they spoke, I could feel their deep joy. I was so happy – both for them, and for us. The level of joy among the friends and relatives I was in touch with on Saturday was also super high. We were basking.

         Already on Sunday, though, I could feel the mood beginning to shift. When I spoke or texted with folks, they’d start by expressing how happy and relieved they were. Then a, “But…” would creep in, or an, “I’m just worried that…”, or a, “What if…”. Someone sent me an article about conflicts that were arising around vote-counting and concession speeches. And I noticed my attention threatening to shift away from my great happiness. My ebullience was on the verge of slipping. That’s when I said to myself, “Oh, no you don’t! You’re not taking my joy away from me!”

         I really mean it when I say that I said this to myself. To be clear, I also said some version of this to the people who were expressing their doubts and worries. Something along the lines of, “Please don’t. I’m not ready to stop being over-the-top happy yet.” But the main conversation I was having was with myself: “Don’t go there.”

         I’ve spent the last nearly two months on a Facebook and news “fast”. I initiated the fast in the first place because I realized how negatively all the rancorous partisan posts and reports were affecting me – even when they were coming from people whose political leanings align with mine. I saw quite clearly that consuming all these expressions of disgust and dissatisfaction and all the exhortations to worry was serving as an obstacle to my spiritual practice.

         Over the past several months in particular, I’ve been focusing a lot on cultivating loving kindness. Loving kindness practices can help chip away at the feelings of dislike we experience toward some people; enhance the love we already feel for some others; and cultivate feelings of affection for specific individuals we encounter but don’t really know at all. These last folks are people we feel basically neutral toward.   

         I do these practices because my ultimate goal is to cultivate a feeling of equanimity for everyone around me. Part of this process entails recognizing that the love and affection I already feel for people is quite biased: I like them because they’re nice to me or to people I love. These practices also call on me to recognize that the same is true of the dislike I feel: I dislike certain people because they’ve done or said something unkind to me or someone I love. It’s also about seeing that I don’t really see the strangers I encounter: I’ve never interacted with them enough to gravitate toward either liking or disliking them.

         For me, developing equanimity through the loving kindness practices is all about recognizing and transcending these biases. What helps me to do the transcending part is focusing on the fact that all people around me want to be happy. Just like I do. That they don’t want to suffer. That they are all in the grip of what Buddhism calls the three poisons: attachment, aversion, and delusion. And that I am, too.

         When I remind myself that we are all suffering the effects of these poisons – and when I’m not swimming in the toxic sea of news and social media – I have a fighting chance of shifting out of a deeply partisan mindset that deems someone worthy of my affection or deserving of my rejection because of how they treat me or those I love.  I am more easily able to see everyone around me as humans. And as humans, we are all worthy of being treated with kindness. Not that we allow each other to run roughshod over us, or over our fellow human beings, or over our democracy. But when we’re able to see another person in this light, instead of rejecting or embracing them because of a certain view or action – that’s when something really powerful and beautiful begins to happen. We can experience a moment of joy within this human connection that transcends the biases on which we’ve always habitually based our evaluations of others.  (And I say “we” here because I genuinely believe each and every one of us is capable of doing this.)

         This joy, I believe, is what carries us through life’s ever-present challenges and difficulties. And joy is a choice. We can choose to make it a habit. That’s what I’m trying my damnedest to do now: Hold onto the joy and not allow my mind to be drawn into fixating on what’s still wrong in our country, on what might go wrong. And this is tricky to do, because the fixating is always attached to, or directed toward, certain individuals whom we’ve chosen to either like or dislike.

         This is the habit of partisan liking and disliking that so many of us have fallen into over the past four years. (And I say this in a truly non-partisan way, because I believe that, whether you supported Biden or Trump – or no one – in this election, you feel strongly that much is wrong in our country, and that much more can still go wrong.) So, when I say that I am choosing joy now, I am not saying that I think everything is going to be perfect, now that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been elected. I am no Pollyanna, and there are no magic wands.  

         However, our mental habits are magic wands of a sort. Slow-acting magic wands. They have the power to gradually transform our daily lives into a hell or a paradise. And they exercise that power every moment of the day, when we get caught up in reading every last news story about all the possible scenarios for how everything might go wrong; when we get worked up by scrolling through Facebook, alternately embracing or denouncing our friends’ posts. And then we’re off and running – and feeling powerless, because, actually, most of us are not the ones in control of counting votes, or making transitions of power happen (or not happen, if that’s your personal preference). At this point, it’s not we who are in control of our minds, but our habits of liking and disliking. No wonder we’re finding it hard to settle ourselves now!

         That’s why I started my news and Facebook fast, and why I’ll be continuing it. That’s why I’ve been telling myself, “Don’t go there.” It’s because I see how easy it is to slip into the biased mindset that has become deeply ingrained in so many of us during the past four years. And how hard it can be to choose to focus on the joy.

         But that’s exactly where I believe we need to be focusing our minds and our hearts right now. Cultivating joy is what will keep us sane and grounded as we move ahead, through whatever awaits us. It’s what will nourish us as we take the concrete actions we feel moved to take out of our desire to contribute to making life better and more just for everyone.

         I don’t know where you, personally, will conjure up that joy. Maybe it’s in the election results. Maybe it’s in the abiding love you feel for someone who’s close to you, or for a pet. Maybe it’s in the glorious warmth of the unexpected warm spell we’ve been having here in New England. Or maybe it will make its way quietly into your heart when you reflect on the fact that your neighbor or coworker or cousin also just wants to be happy, even if their way of going about it seems crazy or wrong to you. I don’t know where you’ll end up finding it. But do search for it, my dears. And when you find it, invite it into your heart and mind – but not just as an occasional guest. Grant it permanent residency. Embrace it as your dearest mental habit. Do that, and it will keep you company in everything you do to make this world a better place for us all.