TOO MANY WORLD ISSUES! WHAT CAN I EVEN DO?
Here's a question I’ve heard a lot over the last year, in different versions:
Which issues should I direct my time towards when there are just too many in the world to address in this lifetime?!
I think it's a big and looming question to hold over ourselves, firstly. But I understand it. Because anyone who is heart-driven and cares about creating positive change and impact in the world is going to feel overwhelmed at some point in their lives by what help to give and where.
And if I were to answer it anyway, it’d be: Decide and begin.
You can look at what gets you fired up in the world, or what issues infuriate you most. You can look at what makes you most sad, or perhaps at what social challenges you can’t stop thinking or talking about. You can look to the circumstances that have impacted your own life stories, and find the thread that connects you to someone else. For example...
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My dad died of pancreatic cancer. I will be sad about this loss for the rest of my life, forever. But despite my anger, despair, fear, and my wish for no one to have to experience a pain like it… Losing my dad to cancer still does not compel me to try to find a cure for cancer.
It's not my purpose. I know I won’t impact the world through that mission. But I'm really comforted that there are people who do. I’m thankful and inspired that they're directing their time and efforts towards it in this lifetime, and I know the ways to support them as they address the cause.
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So then, what piece of the puzzle *does* resonant for me? *Does* align with my purpose, experience, strengths? The challenge I don’t stop thinking about?
It’s the part about how we carry onward in the aftermath of death and loss.
How we hold ourselves and one another inside grief.
How we communicate in our relationships so that we say what matters most.
It’s the challenge of how to make sense of life in our disoriented moments, of holding joy and sorrow at once, of keeping our heart open in the times where it is easier to close.
It’s in helping people find their peace in life’s mysteries, love themselves through the mess, lead by example, and live in the nuance of keeping it together when they’ve fallen apart.
It's not everything or all of it, but it is the piece of the puzzle I can take on.
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What’s usually not useful is living in the pressure to do all the things, or in the overwhelm of not choosing where to start. Remember, there’s no getting it “wrong” if you’re taking small action on what matters to you using the strengths you were made for. Decide and begin. It makes all the difference.
Because at the core of it all…
If we each do the work that makes us feel most alive, if we each work on causes that matter most to our spirit, if we each choose just one slice of the human condition to examine, respond to, create for, and if we do it from love…
This is how we lift the world to a higher place.
It’s all we can do, and it is enough.
With grace and trust,
Gloria