Try to find happiness & joy where you can.


.

I am terrified and scared for my little nieces and nephews. They are left with this. The youngest is five years old. What a mess we have left for them.


I just can't.

I will squeeze in as much joy, fun, laughter, and creativity for the next 19 days as I can!

(in between the bouts of probably increasing anxiety by 1/16 eeee!)

I live in her apt. upstairs and only had to walk down a flight.

We had a glass of wine, a fire and lobster, on sale and the market cooked it!

I agree, squeeze as much joy as you can today and as many days that follow.

Yup, the anxiety is still there and we discussed it.

Best to you and yours

I'll see my 🩷 sister next Monday, and she'll still have her lovely 🥰 decorations up.

My strategy is to reduce my focus and concentrate on myself and my family. I plan to try to live my best life in spite of Trump.

I, too, cannot get over the election. How can so many Americans support a fraudster/rapist/fascist/traitor/criminal/scammer?! The man is toxic but nearly half of our fellow citizens think he's the greatest. Mind boggling. Those are the people I'll avoid as much as possible. (I've given up on friends and family because of Trump.)

I'm getting older too fast. I probably don't have too many decades/election cycles left. I'm going to try to enjoy life on a small scale and keep my head down. I've already begun planning for my son's future and I'll continue to do so. He should be fine, financially, at least.

My best wishes to you, sheshe2! One strength of humankind is our ability to survive. I have faith in us.

My focus is on my family and friends right now.

I hope for a gross implosion of their goals and an insidious lack of cohesion.

Hold fast to that thought — we shall live to see better days.

I live in a red rural Virginia county served by a decent weekly newspaper (only local news, no national news).

I wrote a letter to the editor in which I noted Jan 20 is both Trump's inauguration and MLK Day and I have a choice:
-- Watch the asshole be inaugurated, or,
-- Do something to honor MLK.

I concluded my letter stating that I will pay no attention to the inauguration. Instead, I will read King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

Already the local MAGAts are all over my Facebook page. Fuck 'em.

I expressed the same sentiment earlier. Here is the discussion.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219864310

I am wishing you a safe and sane year...as much as is possible.

Hopefully we can find some of that safety and sanity here among the DU community.

We all are who have DU for support and the truth - and kindred spirits like you.

Thanks so much for sharing and you have to know that most of us are experiencing the same feelings, scared and often depressed. But at least we have DU for support, consolation and new ideas.

I believe we will survive as a democracy…wounded, but will survive.

I’m sad for what could have been that is now delayed. I will bear up…but many feel much worse…it is for them I am most sad.

We are entering very dark times. No question about it.

I do not plan on being "happy" ..... other than while playing with my grandchildren. The rest of the time, I'm more focused on what type of country one of the two will grow up in. (My daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter live in his country in Europe. This was in large part due to the election results. They are visiting now, but will be gone before January 20.)

Instead of issues of being happy, I think the next four years are a time to study Viktor Frankl's 1946 classic, "Man's Search for Meaning." Finding meaning is more important than being happy. And it allows us to resist the dark forces that will soon enter the White House.

I can think of some things that would make it a happy year, but I can’t post them here😹 so I just give good wishes & hugs and lets hope we all make it through this relatively ok 🤗

Thanks to Duncan.

However I am still scared, not so much for myself but for my nieces and nephews and their kids. The youngest is five and eight years old. The eight year old had a stroke before she was born. A brilliant child who was reading Harry Potter at 6 and studying Greek mythology, She has issues with one arm, leg and a part of her brain. I am frightened for them all.

I appreciate your post, thank you highplainsdem...I really do.

I'm very worried about the youngest generation of my family, too, from the oldest of that generation, who joined the National Guard to help with college expenses and now might end up caught up in Trump's plans, to the youngest, my youngest niece's kids, ages 2, 5 and 7. I was sent a photo of those kids in their front yard posing by a lighted Christmas display at night, and it was so warm none of them were wearing jackets and the 2-year-old was in shorts. My first thought was "Cute!" -and the next one was wondering what they'll face with global warming. A couple of days later I found out that thanks to the increased tick population in their area, which is due to warmer winters, those kids now have two aunts (their mom's sister-in-law and their dad's sister) who've caught a serious tick-borne disease - https://www.cdc.gov/alpha-gal-syndrome/about/index.html - which my generation and their parents' generation never had to worry about. For those kids, simply playing outdoors will always be riskier than it was for older generations when they were young.

And I worry about the harm AI could do in all their lives. I've already posted on DU about another niece's oldest son, who's in his midteens, having been told by his computer-scientist father not to count on the career in videography he's been dreaming of, because AI could wipe out most of those jobs. I've seen news stories about high school kids having no idea what to major in now, with AI changing things so fast. That's something those kids' parents and grandparents didn't have to worry about, nearly as much.

Climate change and the threats from AI (as opposed to the benefits AI can sometimes offer when it's used properly and carefully for science and medicine) would be difficult enough to deal with even with the best leadership. And now we'll have Trump, with Musk and Putin pulling his strings.

I've lost a lot of sleep since the election.

But we still have to believe we can turn things around. We need hope.

So I bookmarked that post from Duncan as soon as I saw it.

2025 isn't going to be easy. But we can help one another, as we've been doing.

As I know you've been doing.

hell.

Now you’ve got me thinking about what would be on a list of my own…

1) Don’t watch the coverage. It’ll only upset you.
2) Check around online. There are bound to be posts and comments and maybe editorials or other writings that may include workable suggestions.
3) Find out what your fellow anti-trumpers are doing and, if anything local is in the works. Some examples:
- actual protests,
- marches or sit-ins or some such thing,
- anybody meeting anywhere - whether it’s to stage that level of protest or a misery-loves-company kind of gathering?
- who are you closest to? Anybody available to get together or go out to a movie/lunch/dinner/snack/tea?
- go for a nature-something. Where’s the prettiest and/or soul-feeding place you know that’s close (or close enough)? A long walk through some beautiful areas where birds are chirping or the surf is speaking might be just the thing for a broken heart.
- go see a movie you’ve been intrigued about,
- clean out a closet or other messy area. Having a radio tuned to a music-format station might help.
- write! Put your thoughts on paper. Exorcize those demons safely - and, if you get carried away and wind up going too far, make a safe little bonfire with the offending paperwork on the driveway or parking lot and create your own “cleansing ceremony”. Heck, maybe invite a friend or two of like mind and make a day of it! (Shit - that sounds like something spiritually healing for me to do, too.)
- do some letter-writing to your local/state/federal reps. They need to know how their constituents feel, and this is one way to have an impact!
- don’t forget your local newspaper(s)! The Letter-to-the-editor section wants YOU!

Whatever, I guess.

Happy New Year!

To women everywhere! Your rights over your own body are null and void, the men are making the decisions now. To clarify, it is old white men that are making those decisions.

only as I dread the next four years...if I even survive it.

I wish you the same.

We survived trump’s first term and we will survive this term

Woke today to answer year feeling a gut wrenching fear of what is ahead.
You're not alone and we must remind ourselves this is our safe haven.

Think many of us felt gut-punched after the election. I've cut off cable news, have been reading far less in political news (just enough to stay reasonably informed) and avoid as many Trump-related stories as I can. I can't stand to hear his voice or see his ugly mug.

Still . . . it's a New Year. Our best bet is to stick together to preserve what we can. Including our sanity.

I'm so done. I will work together with other liberals/progressives/leftists and how remains to be determined. It is not going to be fun.

May the new year also be safe for you and your loved ones.

... because there is a new cat on the block. Keep the faith that where there is a new cat there is the possibility for a new dog to show up as well. The next resident of the white house is not as he would have us believe, God.
I've been seeking refuge in Thich Nhat Hanh's writing. Study non-permanence.
My sister decided to throw herself into Jimmy Carter's books.
Our happiness is always fleeting, but where we focus our attention affects that a lot.
Take heart Sheshe, you are not alone.

I wish the same to you and yours.

The best I can imagine without infringing on people's personal beliefs or situations.

Haele

Together we're stronger and will make it through this next year and the next 3 after.

or four....hopefully, their incompetence and infighting will keep them from doing the worst of the things they want to do, but I'm not hopeful.

We'll see what happens if we come out the other side.