A woman expressed her anger at people who voted for Trump.  I responded, “People are struggling and they want someone to get them out of their struggles.” She very angrily said, “well, they should work hard.  You can’t just want something.  You have to go to school and do well in school.  You have to do what you’re supposed to do.  We have all worked very hard and that’s how we got to where we are.”

This woman has a well-off father who provided her with a head start in life.  She’s married to a professional who earns an upper middle-class income.  She comes from a background and a family of means.  Everyone thinks they’re working hard wherever they are and that they deserve whatever they have.  If other people would work just as hard, they would be successful like them; but, those others simply like to complain.

My simplistic viewpoint is as follows: Some people are born at the top of the mountain and yes, maybe they are working hard to stay there.  Other people are born in the middle of the mountain. They are trying to get to the top and yes, that is hard work.  Some people are at the bottom of the mountain, but at least they can see the mountain and see others trekking up and down the mountain.  Maybe they share tips and suggestions with others who are climbing or who have come down and are going back up.  They all know the mountain; therefore, everyone shares tidbits, suggestions, networks, referrals, and so on.  Who you know counts for a lot.

Then there are people who are born in a pit with very steep sides.  They exist at the bottom of the pit, or halfway up the pit.  Maybe they got to the top of the pit, but they’re exhausted and are just trying to stay at the top and not slip back down.  People in the pit are probably working much harder than the people at the bottom of the mountain because at the bottom of the mountain they’re not slipping back.  They’re on flat land.  People in the pit go up a little, but the sides are steep.  If they lose their grip, or they get tired, injured, or somehow lose their resources, they slide back down.  It becomes a cycle.  They slide down, then struggle to get back up.

Each time they slide back down, they incur some type of debt: financial debt, health debt, emotional debt.  They get sick, depressed, older, whatever.  So each time they again try to climb out of that pit, they’re weaker and so the slide back down is more crippling, more permanent.  If and when they finally get out of the pit, they may be so tired that they stay at the top on level ground.  Yet, unlike those at the bottom of the mountain, they don’t often have constant access to people who are ascending.  More likely, they are holding onto people still on the sides of the pit and, thus, in danger of being dragged back in.

Even if the pit people can somehow get to the mountain and, by some miracle, make it to the top of the mountain, they still have a pit mentality from all those years of being in the pit – all that drama, trauma, loss, lack and limitation. Their networks, their family members, friends, neighbors, people they grew up with, and their neighborhoods are still in the pit.  That pit mentality remains a part of their consciousness, even as they transcend to another level.

All of this must be taken into consideration when we say, “I worked hard. Those people would be where I am if they worked hard.”  Well, what did you start with?  Did you start with a family of means?  A good education?  Good schools?  Did you get a lucky break? Were you at the right place at the right time?  Did one person or experience make a critical influence and impact on your life?

Many of the schools in this country are doing a poor job of educating.  They don’t stretch kids’ minds or prepare them to achieve their highest potential.  They don’t teach how to think cognitively or analytically.  Many benefits are given to people of a certain economic level, a certain ethnicity, a certain gender, a certain geographical location.  These gifts are taken for granted.  We don’t often recognize our privilege or someone else’s lack thereof.

We need to realize that we’re all searching for the same happiness, peace, and prosperity.  We have to stop looking at the other as more than or less than.  We have to start looking at all of us, each and every one of us, as deserving people.  Yes, we have differences, but they shouldn’t divide us.

We are one family, one neighborhood, one city, one state, one country, one world.  We are interrelated and interconnected within the infinity that is our existence.  I know it’s challenging.  But let’s not give in.  Let’s keep trying to be peace, be love, be joy.

Namasté