Here's the story: As many of you know, I'm volunteering for the Hillary Clinton campaign. I haven't been able to be as active in volunteering as I'd like over the past few weeks since I am wrapping up my dissertation and preparing for my dissertation defense this Thursday (hooray! That means it will all be over in just two days!!!!!!!!) Well today I was inspired by the Pennsylvania primary, as well as the fact that I went out to the polls and voted ear
ly in Indiana (yes! You can vote early! You don't have to wait until May 6 and fight with all of the other voting crowd... go to www.hillaryclinton.com/action/invoteearly/ to find out where to vote in your county). So with all of this inspiration, I decided that I could forgo two hours of my day to volunteer at the Bloomington Hillary headquarters. I ended up making calls for almost two hours to voters in Pennsylvania, asking whether or not Hillary had their support in today's primary. After each call I had to punch a code into the phone indicating whether they voted for Hillary, planned to vote for Hillary, supported Obama, were undecided, Republican, etc. Well...it was quite an interesting experience to say the least! I am happy to report that I kept a tally and spoke with 22 Hillary supporters and only two Obama supporters. There were a lot of calls that fell into the "other" category though...here is a sampling of a few of my favorites:-One man told me he was voting for "Barama". I said, "Who?" and he didn't even know how to say Barack Obama's name.
-One man said to me, "I would never vote for that bitch in a million years!" Wow, that sounds intelligent. My response was just to kill him with kindness in order to show him that Hillary supporters can rise above the insults. So I said, "Thank you so much for your time and I hope you have a wonderful day." He said, "Did you hear what I said?" and I said, "Yes I did! Thank you and have a nice day." haha, he was probably so confused after that phone call...
-One guy told me he couldn't vote because he wasn't allowed to leave the house since he had gun charges against him. YIKES!
-At least three different people went off on tirades about how they could never vote for any of the three candidates (Hillary, Obama, McCain) and that our country had gone to shit. One woman voiced her frustrations with me about George Bush and I said, "Well I agree with you on that" and then she went on to say how no one could fix our country and I said, "Well they might not be able to fix it, but at least they would get our country moving in the right direction." The lady still wouldn't budge and said no one would be a good president, and I said, "Well someone has to run our country!"
The people who were so angry with our country, as in the last example, were the ones that really troubled me. I know I'm still considered "young", and all of these disgruntled people seemed to be elderly, but I can't imagine being so upset about the state of our country that I would tell a 27-year-old girl, "I've got one foot in the grave. I'm going to die soon and don't envy any of you young people at all! You've got a rough life ahead." WOW. I really wanted to ask one person if she planned on moving out of the country because that is how upset she was with the state of things in the U.S. I didn't ask her that, obviously, because she probably would have thought I was being a smart-aleck and I know I'm not supposed to be rude on these phone calls. I guess I haven't encountered many people in my life who are so devoid of hope or happiness, people who are so bitter that they can't even talk rationally to a complete stranger on the phone. They are crying out for someone to hear them, but without voting in the election their voices are never going to be heard. I really believe you can look at all three of the candidates and find some good in all of them - more good than bad in every single case, in my opinion. (I know that might surprise some people to hear! I feel like everyone thinks I'm so pro-Hillary that I hate the other two...which isn't the case, I just think she's the best one for the job).
Going on another tangent - I don't think that who I support as a candidate should define me as a person in other people's eyes. Recently I had someone who I used to consider a pretty good friend "de-friend" me on Facebook (and on here too I noticed!!) because he thought I was too into Hillary Clinton and he doesn't share my views. It was so ridiculous that I couldn't even come up with the words to write him back about it. Are we in third grade?! "You like Barbie and I like Jem, we can't be friends..." If I worried about all of my friends' political views to the point that I would de-friend them over it, I might be a little concerned about myself. I have friends who support Hillary, Obama, and McCain, and although I might not agree with all of their views on candidates, I at least respect their choices and respect the fact that they are into the election enough to support A candidate! I have one friend on Facebook who posts something new about Obama EVERY DAY. Would I de-friend him over it??? Heck no! Free speech, and good for him for being so passionate about his candidate.
I'm probably getting off track with my thoughts now, but I really feel like we live in such a negative society, and a lot of people don't realize it because they've fallen into the trap of negativity, which is so easy to do. I have done it myself from time to time recently and luckily I have a husband who snaps me back into the right frame of mind! I read an article recently about a priest or preacher or minister (you get the point) who decided he was NOT going to say anything negative or complaining for an entire month. He found it to be very difficult to do, but
he did it. He challenged his entire congregation to do it as well, and many of them were successful. I think that we're only on this planet for a short amount of time and why would someone want to waste time being unhappy about things??? We are all in control of our own lives and we all have a choice to be happy if we want to be. I really believe that anyone who is unhappy has the power within them to turn it around if they really want to. So...smile! Think of the positive in every situation. Go out and read "Creative Mind" by Ernest Holmes! Seriously, anytime I feel like I'm being a Negative Nellie I just pick up that book and start reading it and I'm able to get back into a positive frame of mind.That's all! Sorry for the rant! Go telemarketers! Your job isn't easy!!!!! :)
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