 'Tis the season for… horrifying videos of people fighting over manipulated sale price items at their local Target.
Yes, the holiday season brings about some of the strangest things. (Starbucks cups, anyone?) And given the current climate here in 2016, it can be tempting to give up on the idea of anything good happening from here until the new year. BUT, there is one international day I like: #GivingTuesday. Haven't heard about this hashtagged holiday of sorts yet? Here’s what you need to know.  For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to change the world in a big way. I’ve never been sure where the desire came from, but I’ve always felt it strongly.
But something stopped me. I has convinced myself that my goal would take years, lots of money, and perhaps even fame to achieve. Overwhelmed by what seemed like a huge, insurmountable task, I became paralyzed by my own accord. I got in my own way before I even had the chance to start. What was my problem? While I was always thinking big, I failed to start small. Those tiny steps seemed like a drop in the bucket, trivial, inconsequential. What I forgot in that line of thinking was that even if you think big, you need to smart small. It seems obvious, but you need to do things that feel like only a step in order to accumulate enough of them to go really far. Many people get stuck at step one for this exact reason, because they think it’s an end in itself. It’s not.  It’s the fourth morning I’ve woken up and had to affirm to myself that the election results were not, in fact, a nightmare. Every day I must face the fact that it’s still true, it’s still real, it’s still reality.
While 2016 has been awful, this week has been the worst. In fact, one of the worst that I can remember in a long, long time. To be honest, I haven’t been ready for optimism. I haven’t been ready for action. I haven’t been ready for measured analysis of what can and will likely occur in the next four years. I have been so wrecked with anger and depression over what has happened that all I’ve been able to do is read, vent, cry, repeat. I haven't yet regained the audacity of hope. If you’re reading this, it probably means you’re feeling something similar. In fact, yours might be something so much deeper, more painful, and more terrifying than I could ever understand. I, a white woman with a life of privilege cannot possibly grasp the fear that my brothers and sisters of color, LGBTQ community members, immigrants, Muslims, and other marginalized individuals feel today. For many, we now live in a different America than the one we thought we did on November 7th. I could spend many tear-soaked paragraphs trying to communicate my frustration, anger, and heartbreak. I could rally the troops of individuals who already agree with me, so that we could collectively lick our wounds in self-affirming messages of how right WE are and how wrong THEY are. But I won’t do that. |
Let's change the world.
Who wrote this?Gina Edwards, Impact Explorer founder and lover of all pun jokes, making a positive change in the world, Stephen Colbert, Jif Peanut Butter, and staying inside on rainy days. Order may vary. 
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