I hear people, including me, bemoaning the divisiveness we are facing today politically. I see some root causes of that:

• increased complexity of our collective problems which is hard to grasp and understand so we oversimplify

• communicating via social media which encourages short phrases or sentences, statements of belief, and “agreement” or “disagreement”

• wanting to be right as opposed to curious

• not trusting that we will be able to handle a view that is different than our own

• the tendencies of our media outlets which value “either/or” headlines so we will click on them

• media coverage of statements made by those in positions of power which inflate their influence

• an overreliance on positions vs. interests when we communicate what we want.

Regardless of who “wins” this upcoming election, we still have to work together to build a society we want to live in. Here’s what I propose that will take from all of us:

• prioritizing the issues that matter the most to us and being willing to say why they do

• making time to have conversations so we make time for curiosity and understanding rather than agreement or disagreement

• asking more questions when someone says they disagree - like “what leads you to think that?” or “tell me what experiences you’ve had where that becomes important to you?”

• not relying on “the news” to understand issues - but find resources that are more neutral and that engage us in conversation

• proposing in-person (including virtual) conversations when it looks like social media vehicles are not advancing understanding

• valuing each other so that our opinions and whether or not someone “likes” them is our only way of determining our value.

I’m sure there’s more - but I’d rather focus on this than the sports metaphor of people “winning” and “losing” an election.,