Don't Worry About The US Election.

The future is so uncertain you might be freaking out in the wrong direction.

We are running hot here in New Zealand over the American Presidential election. It’s happening over ten thousand kilometres away, but you would think it was our election from the local coverage. It is right up in our faces. Our reporters are giving it a hundy. A friend of mine who has just arrived back from the US claims we are more stressed about it here than the people he ran into over there. We certainly care more about these glamorous American elections than we do about our local body ones when they come around. They may be low-wattage and lame, but we can actually vote for them, and they affect us directly. Yet we didn’t see Wayne Brown, Tory Whanau, or Nobby Clark rallies on the news cycle, probably because they didn’t exist. Well

Whatever the implications of caring more about an overseas election than you own, there will be Kiwis all over the country following the US results hard today. This will be helped by our favourable election-watching time zone. Polls close at noon our time in Indiana and Kentucky. Swings state North Carolina closes at 1.30 pm, Pennsylvania and Michigan at 2 pm, Wisconsin and Arizona at 3 pm and Nevada at 4 pm. Great for some drinks, hotdogs and election coverage in the afternoon, moving into some early evening pizza, nachos and first predictions with more drinks and then maybe a result or two and a hamburger later on.

If you are passionate about America’s election, the big question is, what happens if your chosen side loses? If America’s 47th president isn’t the one you wanted, how will you feel, and what will you do?

According to social media, the stakes have never been higher, whichever side you are on; the other side is pure evil and plans to destroy everything and everyone if they get in power. So it seems likely that, 10500 kilometres from the action, lots of New Zealanders will go a bit mental later today. Some will be happy, some will be sad, and some will spend the coming weeks screaming that it’s the end of the world.

To that end - I’d like to share some philosophy that may help you feel better no matter what happens. It comes in the form of an ancient Chinese proverb my mum told me when I was just a wee boy. You have probably heard the story before. If you read my book, you will have definitely been punished with it before.

A Chinese farmer and his son have one horse with which to work their land. One day, the son leaves the gate open and the precious horse bolts. A panicked neighbour yells across the fence, “This is the worst thing that could have happened. You won’t be able to farm your land!” The farmer calmly replies, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” The next morning, the horse wanders back in through the gate with four friends. The same neighbour screams at the farmer, “This is the best thing that has ever happened. You can now maintain the farm and make a fortune on the sale of these new horses!” The farmer replies, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” The following day, while trying to train one of the new horses, the farmer’s son is thrown to the ground and breaks both his legs. The emotional neighbour once again pipes in, “You are screwed, mate. How are you going to run the farm This really is the worst thing that has ever happened” The farmer replies, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” A week later, the Emperor’s army arrives to conscript all the young men in the area for a bloody battle with little chance of survival. They don’t take the farmer’s son because of his injuries. The neighbour yells across the fence for the fourth time, “Come on buddy, you’ve got to admit this one is a f#&king good result!” The farmer replies, as he always does: “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

The lesson from the ancient Chinese farmer and my mum is clear: if you are unhappy with the election result (whatever it was), you can take some solace in the fact you don’t know for sure how things will turn out from here. All kinds of counterintuitive ramifications can eventuate. Great stuff can happen from negative events, and terrible stuff happens from seemingly positive events. Maybe the person you want to win wins and does their best but still makes the world a worse place. That has happened before. Maybe you support one side now, but later, you will learn things you don’t know and swap. In that case, this loss is a win from your future self’s perspective. Maybe your candidate’s defeat is a long-term victory as the ideology you disagree with fails and is thrown out next time for generations. On the other hand, if your person wins, they may not do what you expect. They may flip on your principles and theirs. That has also happened before. Your victory could turn out to be a loss. Then there is the butterfly effect. Who knows what events other events inadvertently set off? The mere existence of your candidate’s increased effect on the world may randomly lead to horror, not of their purposeful doing, but from the random wind shift cause and effect from them being in power. In this case, it was a great result that your fave lost.

The point is this - the world is so complex, no one knows where things will lead, so don’t worry; your loss could easily turn out to be a global victory or vice versa.

So, if someone yells at you today, “What a fantastic election result!”, you should channel the Chinese farmer and answer, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” If another person screams at you, “This is a bloody disaster, mate, the US is finished!”, answer, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” This won’t make you any friends. No one likes a fence-sitter. But it might make you feel better. If we allow ourselves to accept that outcomes are never certain, we may feel a little better today, and everyday, whatever happens.

This kind of thinking might just take the sting out of the tail of this thing that wasn’t yours to begin with.

In conclusion

Once this addictive American election is over, let’s all promise to focus 100% on our lame, boring, unglamorous city councils. Those elections are only a year away now. Can you feel the tension brewing? Time to start following the 24 hour city council news cycle.

A council of some sort from somewhere in New Zealand.

Anyway, you seem busy. I’ll let you go. Give em a taste of Kiwi.

Bless bless bless

MH