Today I’ve been… here we go, are you ready for this word? Depressed.

Oof, man. I wasn’t ready for it either.

Today the second overwhelming “disaster” occurred in my already overwhelming schedule. It’s tempting to think of it as a test: Where’s your breaking point, Megan? Are you sure you want to do all these things? Because I have surprised myself by realizing that I’ve passed pre-November 15th activity levels and am somehow more involved in even more important undertakings… and in such a situation, when disaster strikes, my it strikes hard.

I hesitate to use the word “disaster”, because who knows why these things are happening—I am completely open to the awesomeness that will be my life when it all pans out and I can see what’s what. But for now, I admit it: Quite overwhelming! I finally came to my senses and Shiva‘d til my muscles felt like jelly (and my brain too)... and then I went to sit outside.

Outside, I had a few thoughts. Something about the cool air and the warm sun and the green leaves everywhere. I revelated. And I came back inside and pulled all the blinds way up to let more sunlight in and started ranting at Marty.

“This is our job,” I said to Marty. “This is what we do. We work at home, doing these things! There isn’t going to be any getting of jobs here. We’re not going to ‘give up’ and do something else instead. This is IT. This is what we’ve decided and this is what’s best for us!”

I started pacing the freaking room, and waving my arms around. Marty continued to work on his site, but he was listening. “This is us taking responsibility for our lives. This is the right thing to do! People give away their responsibility all the time, their job is responsible for getting them a paycheck for their rent and their groceries, if they get fired there’s nothing they can do, the government is responsible for giving them money while they look for new work, if the economy sucks then the economy sucks, there’s nothing to be done, but none of that is true! What about taking responsibility for our lives and make things happen by ourselves, taking responsibility for having the life we want to live without the luxury of blaming someone else if it doesn’t work out?”

It’s not all like that. TONS of people have jobs that they love and take responsibility for—and if those people lose their jobs, if “disaster” strikes, they make a decision about what to do next and they do it. But oh, my default setting is clear: I want someone to take care of me. I want someone to fix it and make it better. Don’t make ME do it.

I don’t buy that anymore, default setting or not, and you don’t have to either. Being in a difficult position doesn’t mean getting doomed and then running home to hide under the bed. Being in a difficult position means GROWING and learning to overcome difficult positions. Wait, stay calm… and let the realization come to you. Your brain is smart. It knows what to do, if you’re willing to listen instead of freaking out.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember, but it’s true. It got me through several bewildered moments in the last month or so, and it will get me through today and tomorrow and next week and the month after too.

All we need is a little perspective, right? It’s not really all going to hell, after all.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Tuesday’s election and the upliftingness of recent events. I’ve had several discussions with various people about what I’m experiencing vis-a-vis politics, of all things, and it’s sometimes overwhelming to think about. Otherwise, I’d have posted this Tuesday night (when I wrote it). In attempting to quantify my very complex feelings, I have come back to one thought over and over and over.

I need to believe in the power of good people to change the world.

I need to believe that you or I can make a difference. I need to believe that we can rise above cruelty and hatred, that we can be more powerful than those who are living without conscious awareness of their own destruction and waste. I need to believe that we can do something about sadness and suffering and injustice. I need to believe that positive values, love and truth and trust and hope, will prevail.

The fact that Barack Obama was capable of raising this kind of movement says something about his beliefs, his methods, and the quality of people he surrounds himself with. This isn’t an accident. My god, the way this man leads. I can narrow it to a business or technological standpoint and say that the people managing his internet conversation are geniuses, but there is so much more to it than that. (Hell, I could write reams of posts on that topic alone.)

You need to know how important you are.

If I had to tell you just one thing that galvanized me to support him, I would tell you this: He inspires us to be better people. All those lofty words in his speeches, they may not always be about hard numbers and facts and steps to take, but they stir hearts and make us want to be better. He knows that we can be better. And he knows that we can do amazing things if we only believe in ourselves, and try.

People need this. You need this.

I am sometimes very scared, watching the things that happen around us. People yelling things I can’t believe I just heard, hurting each other, acting hideously out of greed or ignorance or petty wickedness. Turning a blind eye to the kind of bullshit that goes on in the world on a daily basis. Being trampled, exploited, abused. Making decisions out of fear—each of us destroying our individual piece of consciousness in a myriad of seemingly small ways, like little cuts.

I was speculating about Canada. Maybe I could move to Canada, I said. It would be cold, but there are neat people in Canada too. I might be able to find a city like Austin there, somewhere.

I need to believe in the power of good people to change the world.

I need to stay where I am, in this country, because I need these people to be powerful. I don’t want to leave all because the people here aren’t powerful, I want to know that this place can rise up, can do amazing things, can become better and work together and be good. I don’t want to abandon them. I want to help them.

I want to know they can be helped. And can help themselves. I need us to be powerful. My projects, my business, and my purpose. I want an environment where the good people are powerful! I can’t stand the alternative.

Those scary people, they’re just doing what people do. It happens. We NEED to be stronger than those people. This election means we CAN be stronger than those people. We can teach them strength. People who yell “nigger” or “kill him” in a public place and no one says a thing, people not educated enough to have tolerance or compassion for people they don’t understand—people they don’t have to fear, and they don’t even know it. It’s not being evil. It’s just being afraid. These people can be led to a better place. Politics is one way (not the only way, not the best way) to do that.

I’ve never been a fan of politics. I think the system has been broken for a long time. But there is no doubt in my mind that though it makes many bad things, it makes good things too.

Watching people on the television with their faces all wet just fucked up with emotion, that turned my heart. I’ve never seen that before.

I need to believe in the power of good people to change the world.

I have to believe that this is possible.

For me and you, and everybody.