Dori: Stop blaming Trump for your unhappiness

It’s never been more clear that President Trump’s tenure in office is destroying the happiness and breaking the will of the weakest among us.

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A recent op-ed column in The Charlotte Observer gives us a look into the mind of someone who has allowed their personal well-being to be determined by a president.

Ruth Mayer explains how she attributes her heartbreak, her rage, and even her unkindness toward others to the election of Donald Trump.

I spent a Saturday this month at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., and I arrived home feeling heartbroken. It was the last way I expected to feel. I had spent the morning sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with my 16 year-old daughter Katherine, whose silent tears on election night had marked the beginning of this national nightmare for me.

Heartbreak. Sadness. Tears.

My fury has been bottomless. I drink my morning coffee from a cup that says, ‘I hate to wake up when Donald Trump is president.’

Fury. Hatred. Depression.

My husband and I, while reading the latest Trump news, routinely turn to each other and mutter, ‘I just hate him so much.’ The constancy of my outrage has been exhausting, yet I have not found a way to quell it. Nearly every day has brought a new reason to stoke the fire.

More hatred. More fury.

After the march, Katherine and I hit the road. We had done our part to express our outrage. We were about 90 minutes south of D.C. when I heard a terrible popping sound. I assumed I had blown a tire…Luckily there was a gas station right off the exit and I pulled in. Before I could do anything but park my gray Prius, a man rushed over. He looked like a mechanic in his well-worn overalls.

The man helped Mayer and her daughter by zip-tying into place a large chunk of plastic that had come loose from beneath their bumper.

He did all of this so quickly that I didn’t have time to grab the prominent RESIST sticker on the side of my car, which suddenly felt needlessly alienating…The whole interaction lasted 10 minutes, tops. But that good Samaritan – I never learned his name – was a man of his word: Katherine and I made it home safely.

After that incident, Mayer came to a realization.

Our encounter changed the day for me…I couldn’t stop thinking about the man who called himself a “redneck” – the man who came to our rescue. I don’t know his politics, but I sized him up as a Trump voter, just as he likely drew inferences from my Prius and RESIST sticker…As I drove home, I felt the full extent to which Trump has actually diminished my own desire to be kind. He is keeping me so outraged that I hold ill will toward others on a daily basis. Trump is not just ruining our nation, he is ruining me.

It’s one thing to disagree with Trump. It’s one thing to dislike him. It’s another thing entirely to blame him for your own helplessness, your own unkindness, your own unhappiness.

My advice to Mayer and others like her?

Live your life. Try to enjoy the rewards of a president who implements things you like and try to overcome a president who implements things you don’t like.

Treat people during the Trump administration exactly the same as you treated them during the Obama administration.

Choose to be strong and empowered. You don’t have control over who the president is. But you do have control over your own feelings and the way you go about your life.

Listen to the full Dori Monson Show segment here.

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