In the last article, we saw how a mother realized her grieving wasn’t serving anyone. Her drama of loss wasn’t serving herself, the world, or the what her daughter had stood for. So she took responsibility for creating her grief, completed her relationship with her daughter, and then created a new way of being for herself, one that celebrated her daughter and brought joy and love to the world.

This is a wonderful example of how someone can identify her own thoughts and meanings and see that she creates them. She saw the difference between the fact that her daughter was dead and all the meanings she had about it. Once she did that, she was able to accept that she now lived in a world where her daughter was gone.

Seeing that she created the meanings, she had the power and freedom to create meanings that were a contribution to herself and the world, meanings of joy and possibility befitting who her daughter was.

Similarly, we create our political system. Today we create that parties must fight for power and are at odds with each other. We create that our voices don’t matter and then we get frustrated and resigned. We create that we can’t do anything about it. And we behave in accordance with these truths that we created. We end up all dancing around a system where they’re all true.

We weren’t the first to create these meanings- they’re common in our culture, and many, many others also create this dance. But each time we believe them, we create them anew.

Instead, let’s create that Congress can be accountable to us, the people. Let’s create that politics can be us saying what we want our collective future to be, and government can be us working together. Let’s not just say that America is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, let’s create it as being that, and build a political system consistent with that vision.

If she can do it, you can do it.

Please be my partner in creating PeopleCoun.org. You don’t have to put in all your time and money, as I’m doing. Spend just 15 minutes a week answering questions, and donate $100, or whatever you can afford. Then invite your friends.