A friend forwarded me this most interesting article on the clearly increasing participation in street protests in the UK and around the world. Old ‘Anonymous’ is rising up and increasing it would appear.
It reminded me of ‘occupy Vancouver’ way back in 2011.
And it reminded me of other things from my youth that I joined in to protest.
Most of the folks behind these movements are quite fired up about their causes. Many of them are worthwhile. I would like to participate in 93.6% of the battles that I see. I have even started collecting some of the conspiracies that I find and tend to agree with or am interested in.
But, something happened when I passed the age of thirty five and I looked at my life. I have two daughters, a wife, a guinea pig, a wood burning fireplace and 91% of my hair is grey and I go to bed at 9:30pm. All of these things are exciting and good, but they also represent the crux of the matter: time is flying and I can’t stop it.
And if time is flying and I can’t stop it, then I also must learn to laser focus my life to achieve the most important things first.
And that, my friends, necessitates deciding what are the most important things to me.
And once those line items are written on the invoice, I must then select the ones that are most likely something I can do something about directly, and which ones will have the most impact for the amount of time, money and energy invested.
I must find my one or maybe two things that I can personally stand behind and do.
So when I see these protests, I think to myself “Is there a better way?” But I also note that I am not present there and I’m saying that as an observer. Perhaps being there is better than not being there.
I heard the term ‘slacktivism’ the other day. Nice. How many times have I been guilty of slacktivism? I don’t want to look up the actual definition because I assume it means ‘sitting on the sidelines yelling about a cause but not doing anything’. No more of that for me.
For the next year, I’m going to hone in on the one or two things that I can personally involve myself in that will make a lasting and positive difference in our country.
