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5 Things A President Can't Take From Us

America is not the president.

Nov 09, 2016

I am disgusted with America. And it’s not because of who is president. I am disgusted because I have never seen an outpouring of hate like the one I have witnessed this week. I can understand the bitterness. I can understand the contempt you have towards our nation’s new leader. What I cannot understand is the idea that fighting hate with hate will move us forward.

Before you discredit me because I am privileged, allow me to say that I wholeheartedly empathize with you. I understand how upsetting this election was. But I can’t rationalize the utter disrespect to our fellow Americans, who we are attacking based on their viewpoints. I don’t agree with Trump, but I can’t change that he is in office.

We can’t change who is our president, but we can change the way we react to it and how we treat others. Here are a few things that no president can take away from us:

Loving

A president will not stop you from experiencing love in whichever way you choose. Love flows from the heart. Romantic or platonic: hug someone. Tell them you care. Love them despite living in a world full of hate.

How you treat others

Regardless of the hate, you have witnessed by our leaders, you are not required or encouraged to behave that way. You have the choice each and every day to decide how you treat others.

Having an opinion

The right to your mind is protected. Your inner thoughts cannot be taken away from you, regardless of the law.

Being tolerant

Because the right to having an opinion is extended to everyone, the beauty of this is that we are free to think independently. Understanding and empathizing with others is a choice you make when you encounter someone who is exercising their freedom of opinion in a different way. Our leader does not have to be tolerant for us to do so.

Acting with kindness

Compliment others. Point out their strengths. Share lunch with someone who doesn’t have the means to provide their own. Listen to someone who needs a friend. Respect your significant other’s body. Choose to vigilantly seek the good in others when you feel you can’t find it.

I hope that those of you mourning America today don’t take this as me minimizing the defeat some of us are facing. Rather, I am challenging you to fight hate with love, and change the country from the inside out. America is not the president. America is each and every one of us, and as many have said: Love trumps hate.

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5 Things A President Can't Take From Us

America is not the president.

Loving

How you treat others

Having an opinion

Being tolerant

Acting with kindness

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No one best represents the struggle like our favorite 90s squad.

1. When course schedules are released and you have a conflict between two required classes.

2. When there is only one section of a popular course.

3. Receiving the 18,000 emails reminding you to register ASAP.

4. When you need to see an advisor, but they are too busy/unresponsive.

5. Trying not to dress like a bum for your appointments with your advisors/department heads.

6. When you have a perfectly planned out schedule, and one class ruins it.

7. Carefully moving things around to accommodate a different class/section.

8. Waking up at 6:00 a.m. for your enrollment time.

9. Concocting a new schedule at your enrollment time after your original plan gets changed.

10. Getting into a class and filling the last available seat.

11. When all of your classes finally go through.

12. Realizing that you forgot a class that was a pre-requisite for everything else.

When your capability of "adulting" is put to the test

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"Nobody living in one of the most influential nations in the world should be worried about making ends meet."

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What are the benefits of raising the minimum wage?

What are the states that have set a $15/hour minimum wage?

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Because who understands your bitterness better than April?

1. When you have to provide an "interesting fact" for your first day ice-breaker.

2. When your professor is babbling on and on in his lecture.

3. When you edit your friend's paper and they get an A.

4. When it's 2 AM and you remember you have a test tomorrow.

5. When you finish taking the test and you're pretty sure you failed...

6. ...but then you get the test back and somehow passed.

7. When you've been up for 12 hours straight writing a paper.

8. And then you manage to stay awake in class the next day.

9. When you have to butter up your professor for an extra credit opportunity.

10. When you're assigned a group project.

11. And your group-mates are trying to chat about life instead of the assignment.

12. When it's your last class of the day and you're about to go home.

13. But then you remember rent is due tonight and the anger comes back.

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