How to do it:

Values

Values are the things we believe in : honesty, justice, civility, humility, courage, integrity. Not all values are mutually compatible. One person may be dedicated to pacifism, while another person may believe violence sometimes has to be stopped with violence. It’s important to identify your values. These are often things that seem so obvious to us, that we assume everyone else feels the same way, because it’s clearly the right way. Duh! We are strongest when we honor our own values while respecting other people’s differing values. This does not mean you have to tolerate intolerance.

Values will help you decide how you want to resist. I value honesty, inclusion and education, which led to me jumping in when people said “but what can I do” which led to posting three ideas on my social media every day, and eventually to creating this site. I do other things like protest and call my Senator, but my “lane” is “helping people new to the movement, or stuck in inertia, get going!”

Here is a list of values to help you get started: https://brenebrown.com/resources/dare-to-lead-list-of-values/. (Image is from a longer list on this page.) Once you have a sense of your values, it may suggest an area for you to focus on.

Joy

Many of us inherited a Puritanical belief that if something isn’t hard or unpleasant, it’s not worth doing. This is absolutely wrong. The most valuable people in any field are the ones who enjoy what they’re doing. The folks who muddle over obstacles in the shower, or wake up with solutions. Instead of fighting your nature, leverage it! Your joy leads you to your tactic : the way you’ll resist. Let’s say your values of inclusion and justice say you have to do something to help immigrants, but you’ve been trying to work up the courage to go protest at an ICE detention center, and you keep finding reasons today isn’t the day. Here are some other ways you could support immigrants.

If you love to talk with people, volunteer to help with a conversational ESL class. If working on cars is your jam, offer to fix cracked taillights, to reduce pull-overs. If you never forget a name and you enjoy arguing over details, consider running for school board and work for rules that protect kids.

Still Stuck?

If you still aren’t sure what you want to do, try this exercise:

Jot down the top five things you’re most distressed by today. (These might not be the objectively most important items.) If you don’t see a pattern, do it once a week until a picture emerges. Your priorities may be oriented around a population (kids, immigrants) or around a topic (health care, education) or a type of authoritarian consolidation (militarization, dismantling of norms.) Once you have an issue in mind, look for a local group working on it and see what kinds of tasks they have available. Try a few things out, and if nothing “clicks” start over. You’ve still done some useful things along the way, and it can take a while to find the right fit.