Perfectly Imperfect. That’s Us.

Hello. My name is Rod…you know the rest of it. Yes, I’m an alcoholic. And I got sober through Alcoholics Anonymous. I love AA. It helped me not only stop drinking but it also gave me a platform through which I could make changes to my behavior. It worked…for me. It doesn’t work for the majority who come to a meeting. And that’s fine. Right? AA is a man made thing. It works for those of us who see utility in its steps and traditions and emphasis on a higher power.

Still when I say that AA isn’t perfect, I get a reasonable amount of pushback. I hear the program IS perfect and that “some people just aren’t willing to do the work.” Or that “AA is divinely inspired so it must be perfect.” I hear I am ungrateful or blasphemous.

But it’s not perfect. It cannot be. And that’s just fine.

AA is a man-made thing. Like buildings and airplanes and books and movies and children and iPhones and weather forecasts and Capitalism and Communism, it is not perfect.

From the list above, let’s take Capitalism. It has good points. It does incentivize progress. It can provide a decent living for a lot of people. It is good. Ok?

But it has its problems. Without oversight and regulation, it can justify the idea that money and its acquisition trumps ensuring that all humans be taken care of. It can become Scrooge McDuck-style sitting in a vault on top of a pile of money you will never use.

Capitalism in its rawest form allows people to commit crimes in order to make money. It is a system that provides for shareholders, little else. And it will take us all down unless we admit the market is not perfect and we need to do things to stop its excesses.

Accepting these flaws means we can fix them. Imperfectly, yes. But we can make things better.

We need to step down and look around. We need to stop thinking our successes make us special or great. We need to remember the idea of grace, divine intervention that we do not deserve.

What I’m getting at is the idea of humility. With Mr Trump’s Presidential run, humility has been on my mind a lot.

What does humility allow for me when I’m able to access it? So so much.

It allows me to say I’m sorry even if I think I’m right. Why? Because letting the air out of conflict gives problem solving room to thrive.

It allows me to remember that to be born a white man in post WWII America is the luckiest thing that can happen to a human. And that luck is as powerful as skill in determining who succeeds.

It reminds me to remember how empty winning is. That the thrill of victory is short-lived and that when the thrill is gone I’m still standing there imperfect and sometimes scared.

It tells me to walk in the other person’s shoes for a moment to remember that we all breathe, move, bleed, smile and feel the same.

Humility erases the idea that labels such as terrorist and thief and murderer can be substituted for the words human being.

Humility frees me from Trump-like outbursts bragging about myself and shaming others. And when I fall short, it allows me to own my imperfect self and not worry what others may think of me.

Now I didn’t grow up with these thoughts. I got them, yes, from AA. I admit that freely. But it wasn’t AA’s perfection which allowed me to absorb these thoughts, it was the imperfection that opened up the space for me to grow. It was the experience of amazingly imperfect people which taught me these things.

When I look at a Trump rally, I don’t see confidence. I see fear. I see sadness. From the podium to the last row, I see people giving up on their fellow human beings. I see the people Capitalism is leaving behind. I see human beings who have been told they don’t count anymore.

And I see how easy it is to get caught up in anger and confusion and accusation. I see the absolutely human desire to get from A to B with the least amount of effort. I see the absolutely human idea that “different from me is a threat.”

Donald Trump isn’t a threat because of his Presidency. He’s a threat because he feeds on the anger and hatred. He’s a threat because he then makes swaggering but empty promises to make it all better with just the wave of his magic hands. Once people think that’s possible, all bets are off. Because it’s not possible.

Imagine if Trump instead of peddling his usual bluster and nastiness stood before his followers and said, “I don’t know your pain but I want to. I want to walk in your shoes so I can help you. Still I need to level with you and say that solutions will require a long term battle against the forces which helped me succeed. And these forces are strong. They have huge resources and battles will be lost. It will require all of you to stop the hatred and anger. To work with people who may look different but are in the same boat as you. I need all of you to put aside your anger. I need you to stop wasting your energy hating your fellow citizens. I need you to be humble. If you can do that, I swear I will work to make things better. If you can’t, I fear nothing will change.”

Without leadership such as this, we are -not to put too fine a point on it- doomed. That’s the thing about imperfections. They are so potent as to have the ability to save us or to doom us.