Honoring our Power

“Why do we deny that power? Why do we not honor what we can do?” (Goska, 62)

Goska’s reading  resonated with me in that it allowed me to reflect on my own failure to act. The podcasts I’d been listening to about climate change, the information I was trying to accumulate, meant nothing in terms my current practice of action. I had a similar experience to Goska, where I had traveled to a foreign country and dressed the part, but had little experience to make any change in an oppressive regime. My actions seemed insignificant, like the tiniest pick chipping away the smallest fraction of an unconceivably large boulder. Overtime, I felt increasingly useless. I made small goals and tried to stick to them, but ultimately, I was overwhelmingly disappointed in myself due to my lack of resilience. Problems were too big to conceptualize and it felt overwhelmingly daunting at how much there was to do. Poor me, blah blah. While indulging in self pity, I came to the realization that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you’re helping someone in some way, no matter how big or small it seems to you- because it might be big for them, and at the same time it might not, and that’s okay too. Sure, my friends and I can’t deconstruct the caste system in India or clean up the mounding trash, but we can go to the slums and play with the children and teach them about nutrition and English. We can reach out to our neighbors and invite them to an American meal and build our relationships with those in our community. Through those actions we can start to become better refined versions of ourselves.

“It is not enough to be our best selves, we have to be Gandhi” (64)

I would be lying if I said sometimes the feeling of insignificance doesn’t creep back into my head from time to time, but checking myself in realizing that I could take the time I was using to pity myself to better myself and help others. This realization was essential to calling myself to action and honoring my power, no matter how “big” or “small.”