This isn’t an original thought, but it runs through my head on a loop and sometimes writing these things down helps me stop thinking about them so I can sleep at night:

A certain billionaire could have used his immense wealth and influence to bring clean water to everybody in the world. He could have eradicated malaria or tuberculosis. He could have housed the homeless or finally brought affordable health care to everyone in the United States. He could have done any or all of that while still remaining the wealthiest, most powerful person the world had ever seen, and, as a bonus, he would have been revered by generation after generation as a hero, maybe even a godsend.

But instead, he used his wealth and power to get a con man elected to the highest office of the land so he could gut government regulation, wreck a prosperous economy, end services that would have improved the lives of tens of millions of people around the world and prevented the deaths of millions more. He did all this with a smile on his face and no small amount of glee in evidence. And although he was championed to do this by no small number of people, in the end he will be reviled by generations as a bringer of misery and death.

He could have brought health and prosperity to the world, but he chose misery and death. He chose misery and death. If I live to be 100, I’ll never get over it.