Getting off the Crazy Train

I feel like a ping pong ball after just a week into Trump’s presidency.  He’s signed unconstitutional executive orders.  He’s created a mass uprising against him.  He’s lied.  He’s obsessed over things that really don’t matter.  And he’s basically put the world on a crazy train driven by his narcissistic instability.  I’m choosing to get off the crazy train and returning to sane.

I spent twenty-two years riding a smaller version of the crazy train with a narcissistic alcoholic and I recognize all the manipulative signs of someone trying to sow seeds of confusion and despair to hide his real motives and his real evilness.  I’m not buying into it this go round.  I’m not letting my emotions be subject to the whims of a deranged lunatic.

However, getting off the crazy train doesn’t mean I’m going to stop fighting for what’s right or that I’m going to stop caring about what happens to other people.  It just means that I am going to choose to respond instead of react to Trump’s actions.  Responding rather than reacting means that I deliberately choose the next right action to take instead of firing off tweets and emails like a crazy person in reaction to perceived slights.

I’m an organizational change professional and it’s time that I acted like one.  That means that I need to:

• Separate fact from fiction—I will never pretend that what Trump is doing is not unprecedented, but if you read the rhetoric from Obama’s first month’s in the White House, you will hear a lot of the same rhetoric thrown at him that the Democrats are throwing at Trump. Seperating fact from fiction requires looking at a number of different news sources and reading beyond he words like unprecedented.
• Determine what is important and urgent—There are a lot of important matters being discussed right now, but not all of them are urgent yet. I need to truly look at when action needs to be taken instead of jumping on every band wagon and firing off scattershot emails
• Educate myself—It is all too easy to just copy and paste prepared emails to send to my representatives, but I want to take the time to learn why something is important and not just to respond to the rhetoric. Why do I oppose Sessions?  Why is what Bannon doing wrong?  Why is Devos a bad choice?  I need to take the time to do the research to answer these questions for myself instead of parroting what other people say.
• Plan—I’m starting to build weekly plans for my activist activities laying out what issues I’m going to communicate to my legislators on and how I’m going to communicate. I’m also dedicating time to researching issues and learning how to be a better activist.

I refuse to ride on the Crazy Train any more, but doing so means taking the time to separate fact from fantasy and having the internal fortitude to stand up to a bully.  Refusing to ride the Crazy Train also means I will have the strength to continue protesting and living my life for the long term and not just a short jaunt to crazy town.