Advocacy can feel like your trying to build a sand castle in the midst of a sandstorm. I sometimes stop, take a step back, and admire the ridiculousness of my efforts. Some people become depressed over time. They lose hope. They get overwhelmed. They hit the burnout wall. Yup, Yup and Yup for all of it! Been there, and you know what….I’ll be in those places again. Temporarily, hopefully. It’s just part of the process. Everything is a cycle. Winter, spring, summer and fall. We season through and cycle through the many emotions.
But here is the good news.
It is impossible for human systems to never change. Never ever ever will things always stay the same.
Systems can feel like unformidable fortresses. They are a tough nut to crack, I’ll give you that.
Some may think, oh what is the point of trying it’s not going to get any better. Well, you are right in some regards, it could get A LOT worse.
The beauty of human systems is that they are fluid. People change. We do think differently, we do learn, we do bend. Change is always a very slow process and so it often doesn’t get recognized until we compare things to 20 years, 60 years, or 120 years ago. Laws change, expectations change, and what we hope for changes.
Everything that we do, what we advocate for, it all matters. It all makes a difference. The small advances do build. Most of the time, we will never really appreciate or are aware of the true impacts of our efforts. In our pursuit of equality we can pause, we can take breaks, we can heal, we can pivot our efforts and change our approaches or learnings. We can do all sorts of things….we just can’t ever give up.
