Hope during the current political climate

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I've forgotten how much blogging helps me let go of my negative thoughts. After my last post, the things I had been feeling anxious about got better without me even thinking about it. 

With that, I wrote this post a couple weeks after Trump was elected president but I never posted it. After the events at Charlottesville this past weekend, I think a lot of anxieties have been brought up again so I thought it was a relevant post. 
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Like many others, the election last week triggered a strong emotional response in me ranging from disbelief to anger to heartache and depression. 

I worry about what a Trump presidency means for scientific progress and my career. 

I worry about what it means for civil and women's rights. 

I worry about what it means for international relations and if we're on the brink of a nuclear world war (or a civil one). 

But despite all that.... I still have faith and hope that things will be OK in the long run. Because we've seen over and over again that things do change and get better. Just looking at history, we've come a long way since human civilization began. And I bet the people back then would also feel hopeless when they were going through it as well.

I know it's a lot easier for me to feel like things will be OK because of my privilege, but I also believe that change based on hope and peace is a better foundation than change based on fear and judgement.

Growth does not come from having no worries. Growth comes from having those strong emotions, struggling with them, and then coming out on the other side to make those changes in a place of hope and peace.

And in order to help make the right changes, we have to have hope. Otherwise, we either give up because its hopeless, or we try to force change out of desperation and anger. 

We are all just going through this journey that never stops. We're always going to be fighting injustice, pain, and suffering in this world, just like we'll always be fighting against our own inner demons. 

I know that I have my own inherent biases as well. Just last week, I was looking up doctors to schedule an ultrasound of my liver (it's just a check-up! I have some benign cysts) and I realized I was skipping over doctors who had culturally different names (some Indian or Vietnamese). I can't explain exactly why I did that but it was just a reaction that I had where I thought, oh this doctor doesn't have an American name, I don't want to go to them. And I don't have an American name myself!! 

We all have biases, we all judge. But my hope is that I can identify my biases and be conscious of them, so that I am careful not to pass them onto my own kids in the future. 

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If you feel like you don't know where to start, I also found this article listing tangible ways that we can address racism:



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