“I think it is healing behavior, to look at something so broken and see the possibility and wholeness in it.”
― Adrienne Maree Brown,
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
Courage doesn’t always look like the we think. For me, courage has many faces. Choosing hope in the face of impossibilities. Allowing feelings when I want to numb. Following an internal compass that defies logic and reason.
I’m coming off several conversations with people feeling the complexity of all we are facing in the world right now–deaths, taking sides, speaking up, silence, new beginnings, horror and hope, beauty and bullshit.
On a long commute, I found myself full-color fantasizing about a world at peace while internally berating myself for my naivete in picturing simplistic solutions. Solving problems matters, and yet, sometimes solving means sitting in the middle of messiness and complexities. Caring in the face of no easy answers. Speaking without conviction to explore pathways. Making one small move that appears to make no difference in the big picture while holding that move matters.
Looking back, I made a lot of short-sighted moves in my life that removed discomfort while exacting a higher price in the long haul. I’m hungry for a longer lens on life.
I have no answers, but I’m going to continue to listen, feel, and hold up hope in the face of it all.