Advocacy means stepping into the unknown and taking a risk.
It is dancing along the lines of your comfort zone. Never knowing how people will respond to you, until they do.
Sometimes you need to be fearless. Focus on the process and let go of the outcomes. Whatever will be will be. But the point is to be doing it. Pushing the line ever so slowly. Planting the seeds for the years to come. Standing up and making a statement when necessary. Magic does happen.
You also need thick skin.
Know that everyone out there isn’t going to like you or understand you. They will judge you and talk about you behind your back. If you are going to be out there in the public eye, this unfortunately comes with the package. To a point. Nowadays…my goodness. It seems to have gotten out of control.
Not everyone is comfortable putting themselves out there. It is a place of vulnerability and unpredictability.
There have been a lot of people who have been so passionate about improving public education that they have pushed themselves into territory they wouldn’t choose on their own. It’s easier to be a bystander, casting judgment from the bleachers. Sitting safely in the unidentifiable area. Much more difficult to be the person in the ring, under the spotlight. When the dream system is so far from today’s reality, those in the ring will never be considered to be doing enough.
I hope all of the people who have been campaigning for the municipal elections are proud of their courage. I wish you all the time you need to decompress and refill your cups.
What I absolutely love is all the engagement that I have been a witness to. I have always wished that more people would attend board meetings, and I hope there is a deeper interest moving forward.
There was a student in my geography class who sat beside me in high school. He was the most vocal anti-religious person I knew. He also knew the bible inside and out and quoted it like every word was ingrained in his head. I wondered if he had a photographic memory. I remember commenting to him something about how interested I was that he knew the bible so well and yet disagreed with it so passionately. He said his father told him that you can’t disagree with something that you don’t know anything about.
If we want to disagree with the systems, we need to figure out how they really work.
To all of the people who took the risk and put themselves out there running for the municipal elections, my hat’s off to you. If you didn’t make it in, I hope this experience has made you a better version of yourself.
Not everyone is suited for a role in politics, and we don’t need to be. We can cover our own zone.
So for now, a day after the elections, I hope you are all resting and optimistic for the next 4 years.
Risk
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To explore feelings is to risk exposing our true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd is to risk loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try at all is to risk failure.
But to risk we must,
Because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing
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