I am troubled by the dark mood of our times. War, genocide, political upheaval, chaos, instability, and cruelty are all on the rise. Power is being amassed and abused with malignancy; institutions created to protect us from abuse of power are being weakened; norms of respect, decency, and honesty are being shredded; society is fragmenting.
The disruption feels weighty, more substantial than the usual ebb and flow of political tides. I believe the world as we know it is passing away.
That’s a hard statement to consider. It’s natural to want the disruption to stop, but hoping that the world will come to its senses and return and to “normal” is misplaced. We have passed the tipping point; there is no going back to the way things were. Realizing this allows me to face the future with pragmatism. I am not mired in angst; I have my fears and grieving, but they do not paralyze me.
There are reasons why the coming changes are irreversible. Many of the current financial, economic, and political systems that govern our lives are overripe for change. These systems worked well for a long time, but they’ve been distorted and no longer adequately serve the common good. They funnel an obese abundance to a small group while a growing portion of society scrapes to get by. This is unsustainable. And because there are vested players in these systems who don’t want to give up power, the coming changes are likely to be disruptive and even violent.
There is a positive side to the disruption – it can prepare the ground for renewal. We possess the knowledge to transform these systems, creating a more sustainable and humane world with economic structures and government policies that benefit all of us. But humanity has rarely made these shifts cleanly, and I believe this better world lies ahead, beyond the current disruption, when a different set of choices is possible.
I believe a critical skill for these times is to cultivate our inner resilience, enabling us to navigate the current period with our integrity and our souls intact. Resilience is as important as resistance. How do I build my resilience? Here are some key points that work for me.
Acceptance I choose to meet life where it is. I recognize we are not merely swimming against the tide, we are facing a tidal wave. I want to know when it will end, but that desire for certainty will not be met anytime soon. Acceptance is not the same as acquiescence or agreement. For me, it is a clear-eyed reality check that makes room for informed and effective action that can aid positive change.
Hope To hope that things will stay the same is a brittle kind of clinging. But a faith that things will be better on the other side of turmoil sustains me. Human history is littered with brutality and violence, but it has not been an unbroken chain of Darwinian carnage. Consciousness is constantly evolving. Humanity has evolved from bands to tribes to cities to nation-states, each requiring higher levels of trust and cooperation. Each stage of our messy growth has proven there is more goodness in our nature than not. I choose to place my efforts, and my hope, in our goodness.
Savor Do the things that bring you joy and relish them. Find your tribe and build the bonds that nurture.
Values Finding and staying true to my deepest values keeps my afloat. Hate, anger, revenge, although understandable, cannot feed me. They fuel the cycle of suffering I am trying to stop. I will not let the craven acts of others rob me of my decency. I will not lower my standards to theirs. For my own sanity, I must stay rooted in the values of my higher self: hope, love, care, the bonds of fellowship that make us human. These are the energies that lift me. My higher self is my conduit to my Higher Power. I can draw from that; I am not alone.
Act My acts, though small, accumulate with many others. Each step toward goodness is a holy step. The changes will not come from a single blow, like David’s stone against Goliath. It will take a steady stream of constant action. Every donation, every meeting, every voice is important, both to my state of mind and to the larger cause.
These are not easy things to do, especially when so many are acting with mean-spirited cruelty and the suffering it causes is so immense. But I see that as my spiritual task in these tumultuous times. I see a world that is possible after the turmoil, and I want my actions to help move us in that direction. And I commit that my walking there will not degrade my spirit, but strengthen it.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash