The date on the day that I am writing this is the 16th of October, 2017, and our political system has gone through a lot of changes, for better or worse, over the past 50 years, and now is a good time to look back to the creation of our country. In fact, in the year 1854, on October 16th, President Lincoln established his first statement against slavery stating that slavery is wrong and immoral, six months after the Kansas-Nebraska Act which had allowed the citizens of Kansas and Nebraska to vote on whether or not to have slavery in their territory. This eventually helped to get him elected by the abolitionists in 1860. 

Tomorrow or Oct. 17th, 240 years ago, will be the anniversary that marks the victory of the continental army against the British Army at the battle of Saratoga. This battle is the turning point of the war, and arguably most important battle of the Revolutionary War, where General John Burgoyne surrenders 5,000 British and Hessian troops to American General Horatio Gates at Saratoga, New York. This was the battle that changed the course of the war for Independence. 

With these events in mind, we can see how far our country has come; however, we still have a long way to go. Our country still needs to deal with the pressing matter of North Korea and how we are going to deal with hurricanes that devastated American territories Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in the future. And we MUST move through the disruptions White Supremacist groups are causing to surrounding communities as well as the racism that has been all over the news recently.  What everyone needs to do is to understand that we all have differences, but we need to  look at all of the similarities that bring us together.

We can all work together to achieve this goal by going against our instincts to fight; we need to fight our instinct to answer aggressive emotions with aggressive emotions. What we can do, however, is react to aggressive emotions with kind emotions. Let me explain.

A podcast that aired on NPR recently talked about an event that occurred in D.C. at an outside dinner party, with wine and cheese and laughter, hosted by a man named Michael and his wife celebrating one of their friends, Christina whom recently opened a new restaurant. At around 10 o’clock that night, a man walked in with a gun and told the party-goers to give him their money. Unfortunately, none of them had their money with them because they hadn’t needed it. So, they tried to get the man to stop; first, they tried guilt, saying things like “What would your mother think?”  This only further increased the tension in the air. When tensions were about to break, however, Christina told the man that they were celebrating and offered the man a glass of wine.

What happened, was that his expression changed immediately and he lowered his gun. There they sat and talked while eating and drinking. It had become a “pleasant” evening afterwards, with the man saying “I think I came to the wrong place.” Then he left with a glass of wine, and they never saw him again. But the next morning, they found the wine glass placed on the curb, not thrown or smashed, just placed down gently.

The video of the story can be seen above the story.