6 Things To Do If You're Fed Up With US Politics

I'm hoping most US voters haven't become jaded and their minds aren't impenetrable or rigid. Regardless if you blame Barack Obama, a local politician or Donald Trump's behavior for disillusioning your version of the "American Dream", I believe we all possess a superpower, a capacity to give people something we can be sure they fundamentally require, founded on a primordial and basic insight into human nature: that all of us are in deep need of reassurance. How do we bring attention to the things we don’t think we’re bad at and simultaneously help all other voters in the United States work through their unconscious resistance?

Roll up your sleeves folks! What I'm suggesting involves a great deal of introspection and even then, it’s an extremely difficult job. One doesn’t usually have proper insight into ones own emotional makeup. Most of us spend our time trying to rationalize our behavior as a result of our lack of self awareness. If this sounds like you, you are not alone. One has to be selfless and egoless to give perfect political guidance as to where to draw the line since it exposes your preferences and biases. On occasions lines are drawn, voters would probably draw lines in different places. But as soon as you admit that the extreme is not possible, and that a line has to be drawn, you are, on your own argument, done for since you are trying to persuade voters that as soon as one moves an inch in the planned direction you are necessarily launched on the slippery path which will lead you in due course over the political cliff. These are 6 things you can do if you're fed up with US politics.

1 - Be the change you want to see in the world

Openness and awareness begins with the ability to self-critique and reflect upon things central to one’s own beliefs, thoughts, actions, behavior, and results. Openness can inform private, personal or group discussions. Ideally, all capable people should look for reasons to start/continue the work of self improvement. Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same person is not equal to him/herself on different days. The first steps to continuous improvement is to know yourself, practice consciousness and be in the moment.

2 - Begin with the end in mind

I believe capitalism is the least worse option - I want more emotional voters to become aware of economic paradoxes, be able to both understand and articulate how they impact their everyday life. As Americans, we overwhelmingly prefer the principle of private property — that wealth belongs to those who produce it. The reasons are pragmatic. Before an economy can have a distribution problem, there must be a product to be distributed. No other incentive keeps people continually interested in doing those things that encourage production as sought after wealth, or money, that their labor or property has brought into being. The principle of private property is embraced by socialists and capitalists all the same. Private property is also the ethical heart of the labor movement, and argues that every worker owns his or her own labor power and is thus entitled to receive, as a right, all of the wealth his or her labor produces in the market place. The private property principle makes it possible to objectively determine economic value and competitive markets. Without competitive markets, how can we determine the price of the items we buy and sell? If not, distribution of goods would be settled by brute force or arbitrary opinion.

3 - Don't tell people your plans, show them your results

Regardless of the best conceived plans, negative thoughts can be paralyzing and make you your own worst enemy. As I began to take notice of my previous thoughts and how I spoke, I realized how negative I was about most things. I was very judgmental and opinionated about things I’ve yet to try or experience. Is this one of your bad habits? All habits, (good & bad) start with a simple three-step process. This cycle, known as the habit Loop, says that each habit consists of...

1) The Trigger: the event that starts the habit.
2) The Routine: the behavior that you perform, the habit itself.
3) The Reward: the benefit that is associated with the behavior.

Each phase of the loop is important for building new habits, but the first factor: habit triggers is were self-motivation blossoms. There are five primary ways that a new habit can be triggered. If you understand each of them, then you can select the right one for the particular habit that you are working on. The 5 triggers are:

Trigger 1: Time
Trigger 2: Location
Trigger 3: Preceding Event
Trigger 4: Emotional State
Trigger 5: Other People
No matter what trigger you choose for your new habit, there is one important thing to understand. The key to choosing a successful trigger is to pick a trigger that is very specific and immediately actionable. For example, let’s say you want to build a new habit of learning more about economic paradoxes. You might start by choosing a time-based trigger and saying something like, “I’ll watch youtube videos on economics in the morning.” This might work, but it’s not very specific. Do you watch at the beginning of your morning? At the end? Any time?

Alternatively, you could create a trigger around a very specific preceding event that happens right around your morning. For example, “When I finish brushing my teeth, I’ll spend 20 minutes on youtube learning about economic paradoxes.” In this case, the very specific action of “brushing your teeth” is a perfect trigger for what to do next (watch video). There is no mistaking when you should do the new habit.

4 - Listen and embrace your fallibility

Regrettably, most people form opinions based on their own experiences. ... You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. By embracing our insignificance while first listening, the individual can be less personal about disagreements once one realizes that one is only saying that one’s point of view is more probable than one’s opponent’s, not that one is certainly right and he or she certainly wrong. Relativism discourages people to embrace their insignificance, because the beliefs are not false from the point of view of the believer. In other words, fallibilism gives us pause by reminding us we may be wrong. It emphasizes the risk that we are acting on false beliefs.

5 - Enable a servant leader philosophy in US Politics

The beliefs of a servant leader set the groundwork for a process that allows government to deal with complicated issues (immigration, free markets, externalities) in an honest, straightforward manner where we can discover all issues and needs, gather the hard information needed to create solutions that puts our country’s sustainability above all else. Accepting what is (I may not be the best person for a job), is the first step to create an accurate plan to proactive leadership. Proactive behavior involves acting in advance of a future situation, rather than just reacting. The task of ob- jectively seeing yourself can be difficult. Before a person can lead others he/she has to lead him/herself through surrender. Surrender is not the same thing as resignation. One can surrender to the reality of a situation and still take steps to create a different path. The concept of “motivation” is very important for a leader and challenges the assumption that acceptance will lead to a lack of motivation. I think we can experience a more effective motivation when we surrender.

6 - Keep your heart and mind open (especially during trying political times)

When you feel pain caused by the politics of the day, simply view it as energy. Just start seeing these inner experiences as energy passing through your heart and before the eye of your consciousness. Then relax. Do the opposite of contracting and closing. Relax and release. Relax your heart until you are actually face-to-face with the exact place where it hurts. Stay open and receptive so you can be present right where the tension is. You must be willing to be present right at the place of the tightness and pain, and then relax and go even deeper. This is very deep growth and transformation.

This is the part most people avoid and will not want to do this. You will feel tremendous resistance to doing this, and that’s what makes it so powerful. As you relax and feel the resistance, the heart will want to pull away, to close, to protect, and to defend itself. Keep relaxing. Relax your shoulders and relax your heart. Let go and give room for the pain to pass through you. It’s just energy. Just see it as energy and let it go.

Jose Franco is a self anointed public intellectual