What does it mean to cast your vote, to raise your hand and be counted? Consider for a moment that we place our trust in a process that represents our collective wisdom. It is one of our great assets. We accept the wisdom of that collective choice even if we mourn its outcome. It is a great and wonderful trust in our ability to make a choice and live with the outcome.

An election takes place at the intersection of future dream and present reality. It is where hope and despair blend to create a new form. There is a no more conspicuous event in our life as a nation. Our warts and hope are all mixed up together. In it we see our human condition, the whole catastrophe, and it is being played out in public. It’s all there, the patriotism, resolve, greed, and faith. There is altruism, stoicism, indecision, love, and even hate. It’s there and it’s visible. When the speeches are over, the banners come down, and the billboards are put away we know that we have had the opportunity to witness a very large slice of our humanity.

So, what does it tell us about ourselves? What can we learn in the midst of blaming, finger pointing, and stories about each other’s failings? We learn that we live with promises of new solutions for old problems, and that we hope to make it better. We learn that we believe in a process, and trust each other enough to honor the results. Our decision may not be perfect, but it is good enough to live with. We learn that we rally around deeply held beliefs, and they have power to hold us together and tear us apart. We learn that we love our country and believe in the possibility for its growth and change. We learn that we can bear our failings, and understand that they are very real.

Yet, in the midst of all this scrapping we could easily miss the importance of the process, for indeed it is a glorious thing. So we endure the mystery of not knowing, waiting for a future that has yet to take shape. It is much like living through pregnancy. The birth has not yet taken place, and we wait with a restless mixture of hope and anticipation. We pin our hope on the shoulders of candidates as if they alone can bring forth that future when it is us, standing in line to vote, who give birth to it. So go and vote, knowing that an election is a display of our collective hope–maybe even wisdom, as we cross the sands of change toward the unknown future.

What about your life excites you? Take a few minutes to think about this. Note the importance to you of what you do, where you live, and what you have. What about family and friends? Consider the way you blend all the many parts of your life and what the result is for you.  Do you find yourself excited by it, or do you often have the nagging feeling that you are not fully being the person that you could be and wonder what happened?

The truth of the matter is that most of us experience our lives as a very broad spectrum. Everything above plays some sort of role in it.  Sometimes we are excited about how it comes together and sometimes we are not. We go from day to day being with whatever experiences that day  brings. If we take time to be aware of the overall scope of our journey we may notice that it unfolds in phases as we travel, involving all of our experiences, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Sometimes these are new, and sometimes they repeat old familiar patterns. They may not always make sense to us, but when all is said and done we have to admit that the whole package is uniquely ours. We all have our own special experiences, and through them we are challenged to move into our greatest potential.

However, there are moments where we are forced into new spaces. They may be caused by an unexpected event, an encounter with a person, or even an illness. These moments change our equilibrium, and may even frighten and challenge us. It is during these times that we can move into new territory, and it may be  then that we notice how precious the journey really is. We become aware of the simple fact that our life is what we really have, and we are thankful for the meaning that it can give us. It is a gift beyond price. So, I ask you again. What is it about your life that excites you? After all, your life is special. It belongs to you!

Much of life is spent operating with scripts, or beliefs, that we rarely think about. We run into these beliefs everywhere. They are so much a part of our culture that we encounter and act on them every day. We just pick them up and rarely consider whether they truly reflect our personal value system. However, when the culture becomes stressed, as it is right now, these scripts become painfully visible and we realize that we can’t live them out.

So what is a script and where can we find it? Good marketers can present a script like a fine piece of art. I love to look for cultural scripts in ads. They tell me what we really believe, and sometimes they are better than the shows they advertise!!! Consider the one where a man shops for a new TV—credit card in hand. He sits mesmerized in a sea of flat screens, all displaying the same image. Into this ecstatic state a choir intrudes with a single line: “I want it all, and I want it now!” It’s the perfect consumer moment, and it makes our hearts beat faster.

Recent events are churning the sea. For many the possibility of early retirement, or retiring at all, is fast disappearing over the horizon. Scripts about how we will live our lives and what the future will hold for us are sinking faster than the Titanic. We are learning that we can’t have it all, much less have it right now. Under these circumstances we are likely to notice the discrepancy between what we overtly or covertly believe and what is possible. So I ask you this, what scripts do we need to let go of, because they may no longer work, and what beliefs do we replace them with? After all, we don’t want to go down with the script. Now is the time to swim for shore!!