(To the extremists on all sides, hear me out before you simply start yelling. If your ego doesn’t let yourself hear what I’m saying, then you can bawl me out afterwards.)

I grew up fairly well off, sheltered in the suburbs of Chicago. Like most kids, I wanted to be many things – a baseball player, a pyrotechnical engineer, an actor – but when I got to high school two things captured my imagination – writing and politics. Mr. Graham showed me the history of injustice in our world, and especially in our own country, and I was shocked to my naïve core. How could this be? How could people treat each other so poorly? Yes, this is a simple question of youth, but I continue to ask it every day. In my heart I wanted to be a writer, especially of fiction after reading The Great Gatsby, but how could I do that in good conscience, knowing how much suffering there was in the world? (And how much guilt was driven into my heart through my Roman Catholic upbringing).

I began reading more – the Chicago Tribune and Daily Herald, news magazines, I began writing letters to the editor (several of which were printed when I was still a teenager), I watched C-SPAN after school for God’s sake – my favorite movie became Mr. Smith goes to Washington. I went to American University in Washington DC to study politics, to “change the world.” I did well in my classes, challenging my teachers and all that nonsense. 9/11 happened, the Iraq war, I joined political groups and passed out literature on the National Mall during protests.

After three years I began to realize, looking around my classes, I wasn’t going to make it in the political world as I was simply too thin-skinned to be a politician, and with too many unresolved mental health issues. I tried to give it up but found my way back, serving as a writer/researcher for many years for apolitical nonprofit dedicated to connecting people with politics, under the idea that giving people true non-biased information would help them make better decisions – certainly a noble goal. Constantly feeling the conflict between what I was doing and what I wanted to do, I eventually left in order to finish writing a novel. And of course, everything changed after my dad got cancer and died.

Since then I have still remained engaged much more with politics than most Americans. The stress of 45’s first term nearly killed me and I can’t do it again. Following much soul-searching after experiencing the devastating results of last week’s election, I have decided to renounce politics. Not as a selfish measure, but I believe in so doing I can much better serve the world. I want to be a beacon of peace, to live in non-contention with the world, to spread love and openness and light, all of which work against the anger, hatred and vitriol spread by 45 and his legion of cult members. I come to this decision through years of Buddhist practice, which aims to get to the roots of suffering, rather than the symptoms we normally address. I seek to live my life in a way that works directly against greed, hatred and delusion, and eradicating those in order to benefit all beings. I begin today.

I got into politics because I wanted to benefit the world, but in the end all it did was cause me pain, suffering, and endless anxiety. I got into Buddhism because I was suffering and sought relief and found some in the path to enlightenment. I now see that it is through that practice that I can better benefit the world. 45 and his sycophants are simply symptoms of a diseased society and culture hell-bent on distraction and entertainment to the point where we can’t make intelligent, informed decisions anymore. Striking at the branches does little to damage the root – cutting off one head only causes three more to grow.

If you want a more peaceful world, you must inhabit peace with your own life. If you want a more divided, hate filled world, then go ahead and meet his hate with your own – it will never get you anywhere.