We Take on the Big Complex Intimidating Issues We Face in Our World
– “We Play Large”
“I refuse to be intimidated by the big tough complex challenges we face in our world. I commit to facing these challenges directly and acting from my “larger self” to contribute my gifts in large or small ways. I will not be intimidated by the lack of obvious solutions and will draw upon and model the behaviors of those who founded the United States and those who persevered over the last 250 years to fully realize the vision for all Americans.”
What's Here
#1 The Challenges We Face
#2 Why This is Such a Tough Challenge
#3 The Challenge of Choosing/Committing
#4 Four Core Strategies – Common Across the Challenges
- We learn about the big tough issues we face and what can be done about them
- We make the individual contributions we can make
- We join with others and take part in the advocacy process for the big tough issues we engage with
- We act from our “larger selves” and a sense of significance
Catch Your Thoughts At Any Time
Added to the challenge to protect and improve our democratic processes and institutions is a set of issues that we face in our world that are big, complex, and intimidating. These are issues that do not have evident answers in the beginning and we will often feel small in the face of them. They naturally require us to act from our larger selves and go outside of our comfort zones to take them on. But that is what we are called to do now.
As in the case of protecting and improving our democracy, these are challenges that require committed individual engagement and also collective alignment – as well as effort maintained over an extended period of time.
#1 The Issues We Face
Most of these issues are focused specifically on the United States, but some are global (and all will have a global ripple effect to some degree). For example:
- We take on comprehensive immigration reform
- We take on the economic revitalization of rural America
- We take on closing wage and wealth disparities
- We continue to counter racism as well as recover from the consequences of our treatment of our native populations
- We build our solidarity and minimize socio/political polarization and the alienation that increasingly affects us
- We take on the challenges of rapidly developing AI and its impact
- We ensure the basics for people – food security, housing, equitable cost-effective healthcare, education, safe communities, etc.
- We respect our diversity of political and social beliefs and use it to creatively deal with the new challenges constantly thrown at us – together
- We take on climate change and deal with the various impacts
- We hold the line against terrorism and aggressive authoritarian regimes that threaten America and the American experiment
#2 Why This is Such a Tough Challenge
These are challenges that do not have evident answers at the beginning and for which there is no historical precedent. There is no certainty of success on which to rely. These challenges are even hard to define effectively, and they evolve as we deal with them.
The path to success is also guaranteed to be uneven – a rollercoaster – with ups and downs, successes and failures, confidence and anxiety, discoveries and uncertainties. In fact it will be a journey, not a project.
Each of these issues is tough enough on its own. Taken together they present a daunting challenge, even though none of us will pursue all of them. It’s still a daunting array.
These big, tough, complex issues require committed individual engagement and also collective alignment and effort – maintained over an extended period of time. This is the reason that “ordinary” is not good enough and we have to act from our “larger selves” to be successful.
#3 The Challenge of Choosing/Committing
Part of what makes committing to action such an intimidating challenge is that there are so many of these challenges and they are all different and require different solution sets. No one can take them all on and there is no common set of solutions that can be customized to fit. We can play different roles and make different contributions to some of these, whole set of big, tough, complex challenges is beyond any of us.
And yet, success comes down to our individual willingness to truly commit ourselves to thoughtful sustained action. Commitment can be defined in several ways, for example:
- “To pledge oneself to a course of action.”
- “To carry into action deliberately.”
And Jean-Paul Sartre said:
- “Commitment is an act, not a word”
Note. We might find that we commit to a particular challenge and then discover as we engage that it is not a challenge we want to continue with for various reasons. That’s fine. We then simply commit to another challenge and take the first steps. Or we commit in various ways to multiple challenges and increase our commitment as we find the best ways to contribute.
We cannot commit to take on all of these challenges, nor do we need to in order to be effective citizens. We do, however, need to focus on one or more of the big complex intimidating challenges and commit to sustained targeted action.
#4 Four Core Strategies - Common Across the Issues
Despite the variation across issues, there are a few common strategies that we can employ regardless of which challenges we commit to.
These strategies require a good deal of thought and exploration and often involve engaging with others. They almost always require going outside our comfort zones to some degree, but that’s where we make things happen and grow in the process.
1. We learn about the big tough issues we face and what can be done about them. This can feel overwhelming, but the more we know, the more evident possible individual – and collective – actions become.
The amount of learning required is one big reason why it’s a trap to try to take on too many of the big tough issues and why we need to pick a couple and focus our actions on them. There is a lot to learn about each of the big tough challenges we face.
Please Note: We need to remember that the actions required to become educated about these issues are part of our contribution to the solutions. It’s not just “prep” or “getting ready.” It’s required committed action, and it is part of the solution.
2. We make the individual contributions we can make. Joining with others to promote systemic change is one approach we can take. We can also focus on what we can do individually. This can range from contributing financially, volunteering, and using our networks, to simply joining organizations, using our positions in organizations, and championing issues with family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. Despite the systemic nature of these issues, our individual actions are highly significant.
3. We join with others and take part in the advocacy process for the big tough systemic issues we engage with. There are lots of individual actions we can take to support an advocacy process – lots of ways to contribute. We don’t need to be professional advocates. We just need to fit our talents to the advocacy process.
One benefit of being part of the advocacy process is that there are a lot of opportunities to be engaged with others, which can be very supportive. This is deceptively important.
4. We act from our “larger selves” and a sense of significance. This starts with the realization – and acceptance – that we matter. We are significant. What we do matters. We don’t need to solve these issues – we can’t. But we do need to be off the sidelines and contributing what we can contribute. We can start small, but we need to “be in the game.”
And that means acting from our “larger selves.” It means drawing on our values, our courage, our ability to persevere, our resilience, and the competencies that we have developed over a lifetime. It means acting large even if we feel small. If we look, we will find what we need, although we will probably be outside our normal comfort zones.
There will always be a pull to retreat and to act from our smaller selves – our sense of impotence in the face of tough reality, our desire to be taken care of, our desire to blame others and nurse grievances, acting from fear and anger, etc. That pull is natural, and we are challenged to acknowledge it and then say, “No, I’m acting from my larger self.”
“Let no one be discouraged by the belief that there is nothing one manor one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery and ignorance, injustice, and violence… Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man (or a woman) stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he (or she or they) sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
Robert Francis Kennedy speech at
Day of Affirmation,
University of Capetown, South Africa