I don’t know who needs to hear this but being an asshole and being tough aren’t the same thing.
Empathy, humility, and sometimes even forgiveness for those who ask for it take a lot more mental toughness than joining abusers in their behavior.
That’s also what Biden stands for.
In the coming days I think I may share my own mental health stories of hurt, abuse, and heartbreak.
For all of us, this year has been devastating. For me, I lost almost everything I loved or cared about.
In almost all the case it was because I said- enough.
It is absolutely the right thing to not allow abuse. It’s the right thing to say “no more”.
But for me, what I have learned is when those who have abused me in my life have been confronted harshly- it hurts me just as bad to hurt them as it does myself to carry it.
The best feeling is success without any type of reaction to give. It is knowing that- in spite of their best efforts they could not defeat me.
There is good in the world still if you seek it, if you allow it. I had to learn when to say “no more” in a healthy way.
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I’ve been lucky enough to have met or worked with a lot of folks- Besides Sen. Jones (I’m biased)- @JoeBiden has been the most decent man that I have met.
I had the chance to spend part of a campaign day in 2017 with him and it changed how I view a lot of things-
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I was able to be with him and listen to him privately speaking to others behind closed doors- I expected him to talk electoral math of the race, how to win certain voters, and all the things we all usually talk about when we are campaigning. He didn’t.
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He talked about decency. He told stories about his dad, his mother, people he met in his travels that shaped him.
He didn’t talk about prime ministers and leaders he knew- he talked about us. How our stories told him the right way. And he listened.