meaningful action in 2020

Here we are, a few weeks into 2020. How are those resolutions going? A friend committed to working out and a strict daily diet, but she just confessed she ate an entire bag of Doritos before the sweat from one of her workouts dried on her skin. Another friend always commits to “Dry January,” but the Titans keep winning, so he feels like it is best for him to drink while watching, given his habit of doing so. Our collective failure at resolving to utterly transform our habits suggests we should rethink our resolution game plan.

Last week I tried to make the case that instead of making big resolutions, we should simply prepare for the year before us. It is an election year, and given the reality that our news consumption and living habits are highly segregated, most of us think the opinions of half the citizenry are ignorant, or destructive. Given this reality, it is helpful to resolve to practice and develop habits of empathy. Empathy fosters connection with others, humanizing people we don’t understand (Read the essay preceding this one if you like this line of thinking). It forces us to think outside our own thoughts and look instead to the perspective of another. This small instinct, nurtured and developed over time, strengthens what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr called a “single garment of destiny.” In a letter he wrote from jail, he reminded us that we are “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,” and that because of our connectedness, “whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” The habituated practice of empathy reminds us that King was right. Our shared humanity rejects apathy as a cruel response to the pain of another.

Empathy makes us responsible for words uttered and actions completed in our presence. It requires us to care. This leads me to the second resolution I suggest as we prepare for 2020: To action. Dr. Seuss famously wrote, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Seuss understood the power of empathy to spur action, because he knew that recognizing our connectedness leads to empathy, and empathy leads to understanding, and understanding leads to a will to help, and that will leads to action. The other truth Seuss reveals is that meaningful action is always personal.

This year, establish what you care about and then do what you can do in that space. I have wildly different views from many peers about what a just and healthy society might look like. I now understand that I respect those who consistently (and sacrificially) act to pursue their vision of justice, even if it differs from mine. Words are cheap and often inflaming, but action requires a commitment to do something. The doing of a thing teaches us, exposing us to a different aspect of our position.

We know that big arguments about what America is, has been, or should be are coming. While some folks pretend they are above it all, most of us will be drawn in to conversations in which both parties claim to hold positions we have hardly ever considered. I might spontaneously become an expert on criminal justice or the minimum wage, even if I rarely share space with a person whose life is chronically impacted by current policies or realities. Here it is useful to consider the words of Edward Abbey, apostle of the wilderness, and wild protector of natural spaces for the sake of us all. He argued, and seemed to embody, the following: “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”  

This year, resolve to act. Don’t just offer sentiments; instead, take action. Don’t just complain about the poor communication from your school, neighborhood or faith group; instead, offer your help to streamline and organize information. Don’t just pontificate on the indulgence of food stamps; instead, find and support a school with a Backpack food program, or try to live and feed your family on minimum wage. Don’t just rant about the destruction of the environment; instead, offer to recycle for your neighbors or commit to biking and walking for any trip under three miles. Don’t just talk about lives destroyed by abortion; instead, foster a child, get involved with a women’s health clinic, advocate for universal and ubiquitous birth control, or find and support schools with daycare for students who are also parents. Don’t just lament the shallow or disconnected state of our communities; instead, host an evening where people intentionally engage in conversations that resonate. 

 If you resolve to act in 2020, know that it is best to do what you can do instead of what you cannot. Committing to act in a way that is foreign or far outside your sphere of experience will likely lead to failure. And yet, empathy-driven action revives the soul, facilitates meaningful connections, and humbles our tendency to shout our opinions. This year, take action in the areas you find yourself caring about, and allow those experiences to inform your posture, your opinions, your passion.

Empathy, over time, spurs meaningful action. Such action will often mysteriously humble and empower, reinforcing empathy and strengthening your connections to others in your communities. What a wonderful way to spend a year.