“Change never happens at the pace we think it should. It happens over years of people joining together, strategizing, sharing, and pulling all the levers they possibly can. Gradually, excruciating slowly, things start to happen, and then suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, something will tip.” – Judith Heumann
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The passage of time and how fast things are resolved can intensify pain and trauma greatly. If systems were more responsive to people and resolution weren’t delayed, the harm would be mitigated for many. Bounce-back time for those involved would be faster. Systems know that delay is harm. It’s why they use it as a strategy, hoping people will leave and move on for their own self-preservation.
While moving the needle for systemic change is not going to be fast, harm is still occurring while we wait. That is the rip-your-face-off reality that we all want. Change to happen now. Out of desperation and triggered energy, we seek dramatic and dynamic advocacy “tricks” to compel people to make new decisions and change their behaviour. Thinking that if they surely understood what was at stake, change would be delivered.
And then when nothing happens or not exactly what we were seeking, we are lost and confused. We do not understand the planet we are living on and who we are living with.
Recognizing that time is not on our side, or that it is even going to be used against us, is a hard pill to swallow.
Accepting that we have no control over how fast the rate of our advocacy is accepted by the masses or even the group of people we need to influence, we need to melt into the present and just be still for a minute. This is where meditation has been helpful for me. Only even if it is only for a 3 min guided meditation on YouTube, the pause and breath work can slow down my own knee-jerk reaction nervous system and bring me back to reality.
I have to say, nothing has taught me patience like navigating the BC Human Rights Tribunal system. There was nothing that I could do to speed up that system. I just needed to wait. And so I got really good at waiting.
When we learn to accept that the work will never be completely finished. And even if it is, finished work is fragile. We are just always in a step in the right direction. It’s not like the finish line keeps moving because there is no finish line to begin with.
We aren’t going to be able to save everyone and stop all of the harm. Struggle and suffering is going to be a part of people’s lives regardless of what we do. It has always been and will always be. It’s just the level of intensity of struggle that we are fighting to reduce.
You can’t force people to learn or unlearn things at a rate that is faster than what they are capable of or what they are interested in doing.
You will drive yourself into a spin, and it won’t help you or your cause. If anything, there is the potential of you doing or saying things out of anger and frustration that will create more barriers and impact the process, so now things will take even longer.
You may not be able to press the fast-forward button on social change, but you can plant as many seeds as possible, in such a way that you build the most fertilized garden. So if and when people are ready, they will grow at the fastest rate, the most nourished rate possible. Focus on what you can do. And everything else…. Let. It. Go. Wipe it off. If you have to stand up and act out the motions of wiping it off you with grand sweeps. Do it. Your brain will thank you.
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” – Martin Luther
