When the lights feel off
Some weeks it feels like the dark is winning. The news is loud, the people in charge seem to like the noise, and you start wondering if anything you do matters.
I know that feeling well. I’ve got 31 years of practice climbing out of it, and here’s what I can tell you: the dark gets loud, but it doesn’t get the last word.
In recovery, nobody asks you to fix the whole year. You do the next right thing, then the one after that. Turns out that works for a bad night, and it works for a country too.
A new day is coming
Right now it can feel like the people in charge run on chaos. Every week brings another headline that makes you want to put the phone face down and go for a walk. That exhaustion is real, and a lot of folks are carrying it.
But nothing built on fear and noise lasts forever. People get tired of being pushed around, and when enough of them decide they’ve had it, things move. We saw it in the voting booth this week, and we’ll see it again.
I don’t have a crystal ball. I do have 31 years of watching people walk out of situations that looked permanent. Change usually shows up quietly, in a lot of small decisions, before it shows up loud.
Hope takes work
Hope that sits on the couch turns into waiting. The kind that works has a job to do.
So call your new representative’s office and tell them what matters to you. Show up to a school board meeting. Help a neighbor who’s having a hard week, because a country is just a lot of neighborhoods.
And when the dark comes back, because it will, remember that you’ve already seen it lose once.
Keep the lights on. Somebody out there is counting on you to.When the lights feel off
Some weeks it feels like the dark is winning. The news is loud, the people in charge seem to like the noise, and you start wondering if anything you do matters.
I know that feeling well. I’ve got 31 years of practice climbing out of it, and here’s what I can tell you: the dark gets loud, but it doesn’t get the last word.
In recovery, nobody asks you to fix the whole year. You do the next right thing, then the one after that. Turns out that works for a bad night and it works for a country too.
A new day is coming
Right now it can feel like the people in charge run on chaos. Every week brings another headline that makes you want to put the phone face down and go for a walk. That exhaustion is real, and a lot of folks are carrying it.
But nothing built on fear and noise lasts forever. People get tired of being pushed around, and when enough of them decide they’ve had it, things move. We saw it in the voting booth this week, and we’ll see it again.
I don’t have a crystal ball. I do have 31 years of watching people walk out of situations that looked permanent. Change usually shows up quietly, in a lot of small decisions, before it shows up loud.
Hope takes work
Hope that sits on the couch turns into waiting. The kind that works has a job to do.
So call your new representative’s office and tell them what matters to you. Show up to a school board meeting. Help a neighbor who’s having a hard week, because a country is just a lot of neighborhoods.
And when the dark comes back, because it will, remember that you’ve already seen it lose once.
Keep the lights on. Somebody out there is counting on you to.