This Preparation Thing

Last month, the US conducted elections, most notably, presidential elections. The candidates were Donald J Trump, sitting President and flag bearer of the Republican Party and Joseph R Biden, former Vice President and flag bearer of the Democratic Party. Many many interesting things happened before Tuesday, November 3 – the last day that votes could be cast – but let’s forget about the past. Many of us thought that the elections will be called in the evening of the 3rd or the early hours of the 4th, but they weren’t. They were also not called on the 5th. Or the 6th. I spent an obscene amount of time on various news feeds on the 4th, 5th and 6th, many a time, with a calculator in hand and bated breath. I prayed passionately and saw answers to prayer. I had a back and forth with my mother on the matter and how we should not count our chickens before they are hatched. And then finally, on Saturday November 7, 2020, the call we were all too afraid to jinx was made.

CNN took the lead and called the Election at 11:24am EST. It was followed in quick succession by NBC, CBS, ABC and The Associated Press. At 11:40am EST, when Chris Wallace spoke about ‘the power of what we are seeing right now,’ I allowed myself to believe what I had low key believed since the 4th. But at that point, Van Jones was already crying on international TV. Madame VP posted the now viral video that warmed many hearts. Street parties broke out across the world. Many people who didn’t follow politics realized that Mr. Trump must be ‘bad bad’ if people were rejoicing so much. Ms. Kamala was the embodiment of possibility in her white suit and satin pussy-bow blouse with Mary J Blige’s ‘Work That’ reminding us all that we can’t run from the beautiful queen that we could be becoming. The President-Elect was positively presidential in his remarks and it gave me the warm fuzzies.

Now, let’s talk about the interesting things that happened after November 7. There was no concession speech, which is fine if you don’t feel like there’s anything to concede. There were many lawsuits and recounts and baseless incendiary tweets, but that’s not new and people have a right to say (or tweet) what they want to say and Twitter and Facebook know how to treat those matters. What shocked (but didn’t surprise) me was the decision of many thinking individuals to ignore facts or logic and throw tantrums – someone was even fired for pointing out the facts. Those that we expected to think and stand for the truth admitted that they were waiting on Mr. Trump to accept the election results before acknowledging Mr. Biden’s victory and several federal agencies refused to work with Mr. Biden’s team. But the turkey was pardoned and the tree was delivered, in case you were wondering.

About a month later, there still hasn’t been a concession. The lawsuits and recounts are being settled/ closed, federal agencies are starting to think about working on the transition of power and Mr. Trump is lamenting his fate in public places where he has been invited to rally for other candidates. The Bidens have not been invited to the traditional sit down (and I’m not holding my breath for that) and I don’t think we’ve heard a word from Mr. Pence. Here’s what is so cool: all this is happening but you can’t tell by looking at Mr. Biden and his team. The man has been working steadily. He has announced several appointments, including White House Senior Staff and nominees (or appointees) for positions relating to the economy and national security. It’s almost like he is planning to hit the ground running from day one.

‘And why would he do that?’, I asked myself, and myself responded, ‘because he knows he won. He knows he’s going to be the president. And he doesn’t want to fall flat on his face and disgrace all the Bidens all over the world.’ Myself can be rather expressive sometimes, bear with us, but this is what she was saying: Preparation is prophetic. When you believe you will have something or become something, you prepare for it. This is how we know that you actually believe it. People who do well, the ones who hit the ground running don’t wing it, they prepare. And those who just wing it oftentimes stumbled into it.

I said all this to say this: if you really believe you’ll have something, you’ll prepare for it. You’ll take the class. You’ll get the recipe. You’ll buy the furniture, or the car mats, or the pram. You won’t be on Amazon.com in the delivery room during your breaks from pushing trying to buy a car seat to take the baby home in. That’s all.

What do you think?