It's November 9th, 2016.  It's my birthday today.  

This surely takes the cake as the most rarified of birthdays for me. It feels quite odd to witness the mix of emotions that are alive in the country today. Whether elated, stunned, delighted or grieving, most people are experiencing a mix of intense emotion today.

Meanwhile, I'm connecting with the joy and pensiveness that my birthday always brings me.

I've always seen my birthday as being a special gateway to reflect on the past year and what I want to create in the new one. It's a little bit of a clean slate.

In some ways, today a new country is being born too.  Some see it as a promising new start. Others see it as the failure of the nation.  

But building on yesterday's blog post that the best we can do is breathe, whether we are happy or depressed with the outcome, the next step needs to be to move towards peace and connectedness.

We can only create a world that is an expression of who we are being. I can't say it better than Martin Luther King:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let's be what we want to see.

Don't focus on the differences between us, because it drives the wedge even deeper.

Don't focus on what you think is wrong, as it will little by little show you everything that's wrong with the world.

Don't hold onto your judgments of me too tightly, for they are reflections of how you're judging your life.

Don't fixate on the wrongness of this or that elected official, because you'll be making it more real.

The more we focus on our shared humanity, the more we focus on what we appreciate about each other, the more that we hold each other with compassion, and the more that we choose to trust each other, the more likely we are to pave the way to a world of peace.

Today is my birthday and my wish is love and peace.

So today I will practice love and peace towards everyone around me.