Here’s my advice: get used to the feeling that you’re not making a difference, not doing enough. Make peace with that feeling. Your position in a system determines what power you have. There is glory and honor in during your part. The public sector takes public action. #DOTIfest
Glad these words resonated with so many people. Humans think we can do it all, don’t we? But to be human is to be finite. This advice comes out of my own wrestling with the fact that I am making a difference, but not ALL the difference I’d like to make. But turns out that’s life.
These days, we fetishize disrupters. I believe there is a role in society for those who build alternative models outside of existing institutions. And I totally believe that sweeping policy change can happen overnight—
I work with government specifically due to its scale of impact— but the political work it takes to pass a new policy? And then the manifesting of that new policy through existing institutions to finally make a difference in the lives of people? That tends to take a long time.
All I’m saying is that there are 24 hours in a day, and I hope you are sleeping for 7-9 of them. Unless you are an authoritarian ruler, you probably don’t have all the power you need in a given system to make the changes you think are necessary. So that leaves us with choices:
-Be sad (cuz it’s a bummer)
-Be angry (efff that systemic barrier, man)
-Go find more power (a different position in the system affords you different jurisdiction for change)
-Do nothing (not satisfying to me)
-Make friends with your powerless and get back to work
-Be angry (efff that systemic barrier, man)
-Go find more power (a different position in the system affords you different jurisdiction for change)
-Do nothing (not satisfying to me)
-Make friends with your powerless and get back to work
Because there is honor in doing your duty. The very definition of a system is that it is made of many parts, not one. Systems are made of time, tools, money, and humans. Our societies are made of many, many humans.
Legislators, the press, advocates, service providers, policymakers, teachers, designers, lawyers, random man on street: we all have a part to play. The dismantling of racism, unequal economic systems, stigma for our most vulnerable neighbors— this task is too large for you alone.
So I suggest that you do your work (think critically, question yourself, pursue excellence), and then go for a walk, go to therapy, drink water, drink wine with your loved ones, and then go to bed— because there is more work to be done tomorrow, and we need you at your best.
