Today is January 20th, 2017. Inauguration Day here in the United States. Today, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of these United States. Today marks the end of one era and the start of a new, uncertain one. One that has clearly has divided our society. Like it or not, it's here, and the time has come to make it work. For everyone.

There's no question the last year and a half (some would even argue the last eight, or more) has driven a sizable wedge right down the middle of society, and one that needs to be removed quickly if we truly want to make things better for everybody.

I don't typically discuss politics, and I'm not so sure I'm discussing them now. Yes, they are the basis for what I want to say, but they're not what I want to talk about, if that makes sense. My goal here is a call to action, if you will. One that will be difficult for everyone, but one that I feel is the right one. The necessary one. My goal here is to hopefully inspire a change in this ugly culture of name calling that has infested society of the years.

Call me a starry-eyed dreamer if you will, and if you do, you're the exact person I'm talking to, but my hope is that we, at the very least, can work toward respecting each other's opinions. Now, I'm not expecting all of us suddenly hold hands and sing, "Kumbaya" around the campfire while a herd of unicorns dance in the glow of an ever-present rainbow. No, I fully understand conflict will happen, and is necessary to try and move things forward. I also understand that both sides of whatever issue will never fully agree on the resolution that is needed in order to move on to the next issue. And that's the key word here, "compromise."

No one will ever get everything they want, and what troubles me is what seems to be the utter lack of desire to even attempt compromise. For the last several years, everyone seems to have dug their heels in and flat refused to even listen to what the other side has to say. Resorting instead to hurling insults at one another, which accomplishes nothing other than some self-inflated sense of pride, that we're somehow better than the person we're arguing with because we one-upped them with some witty insult.

Based on my Facebook feed today, we have a long way to go. Those on the left have jumped to the conclusion that everything they've worked so hard to achieve (equal rights, health care coverage, etc.) will be wiped away in one single swipe of a pen. While those on the right are cheering because they believe the time of government putting their hands into places they don't believe they belong has come to an end. The truth is, none of us really know what's going to happen. Are both of the aforementioned scenarios possible? Sure. Anything is possible. Is it also possible neither scenario happens? Absolutely. So why our we getting ourselves all worked up into a tizzy about things that haven't happened yet, and may never happen at all?

There absolutely will be issues to tackle. Many of which are issues we've been wrestling with for some time, and there's no doubt in my mind some of them will require long, sometimes contentious, discussions in order to be resolved. But, if we're not even willing to have the discussion, then nothing will ever get resolved.

Part of me feels like my request is a simple one, "just be nice to each other everybody!", but I know it's far more difficult than that. However, the right thing to do is rarely ever the easiest, and if we can all step back and realize we're all in this together, it's not only the right thing to do, it's the thing we must do.

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