Getting Better All the Time…
Thoughts on not always getting it right
Thoughts on not always getting it right
You will not be perfect.
And you do not have to be.
Your good intentions could be misread, and probably will.
Do not let this deter you.
When you join a cause, and someone tells you you’re doing it wrong, remember, there isn’t a right way, just a better way.
The suffragette movement certainly didn’t have it right when they only fought for white, married women to get the vote. Or they had sideline platforms for eugenics and sterilisation. But that doesn’t mean the right to vote for women didn’t matter and that they didn’t also do some serious good.
No one is just one way. People are far too complicated for there to be only one way to tackle systemic oppression. We must come from all directions, all experiences and embodiments, all identities.
Do not scold those who aren’t doing it your way. Do not put people off by telling them their actions are invalid or just as problematic as the thing we are trying to dismantle. Do not exclude people who want, just as much as you, to belong and be accepted and feel safe.
Do not take such scoldings to heart in a way that prevents you from being involved. Do not be put off or afraid to take a stand because no one can agree on the perfect formula for dismantling systems of oppression. Do not feel excluded from making your voice heard on the importance of belonging, being accepted and feeling safe.
It is fine to offer discourse and criticism, but do not pass judgement while doing so. It is as important to modify our actions to match our intentions as it is to ask about the intention behind the action of another.
I choose to trust people before I choose to be fearful of them. Life involves disappointment regardless of the approach I take, and I would much rather live with an open heart than a closed one. I’ve lived with a closed heart, and it is unpleasant.
It is crushing and painful on top of the ambiguity of life.
This is what it is to be human. We are imperfect, we are flawed, we are beautifully complex, messy beings. We are oneness, whether we recognise that or not. Oneness is not sameness. Oneness is interconnectedness. We are multiplicity, and we are one. These things do not contradict each other. Oneness is not something we create; oneness is something we learn to see.
You will not always get it right.
But neither will anyone else.
The most we can aim for (and aim we must, for the arc of humanity to a clean conscience is not inevitable without hard work) is to get better at this.
Get better at not blaming people but blaming ideals and dismantling the systems that create and perpetuate the division of multiplicity in oneness.
Get better at standing united, in solidarity against hate and ignorance, in ourselves and others.
Get better at making ourselves heard.
Get better as listening.
Get better at relating.
Get better at loving.
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Thank you to Zenju Earthlyn Manuel for her teachings on oneness, tenderness and love.
Originally published on Medium.
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