Daring Greatly

                   
                  Through the centuries, we faced down death by daring to hope. – Maya Angelou

In 2012 Brene Brown published the book Daring Greatly:  How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way we Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.  The subject of this work is vulnerability, and Brown took her inspiration from a quote by President Theodore Roosevelt: 

                It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man
                stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit
                belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and
                sweat and blood; who strives valiantly…who at best knows in the end the triumph of
                high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
 
Brown’s book has been wildly popular as are her TED Talks, but there is another example, an earlier one that stands out in my memory and one that has been updated more recently.
 
Back in the 1990s, Robert Reich served as the Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton.  Reich stepped down from the post in 1996, and I recall reading the reason for his decision in a Parade Magazine tucked inside my Sunday newspaper.   The gist of the story was this:  Reich had two teenage sons, and he wanted to spend more time with them.  He said something like this:  “Teenage boys are like oysters.  They only open up once in a while.  When they do, you have to be there to see the pearl.” I’ve never forgotten that wisdom, and back in the 1990s, it would have been a big deal for a man to step out of the suite of power for the sake of his children. 
 
Reich has remained active in his field and currently hosts a podcast.  Sometime ago, he was interviewed and spoke about his time as Secretary of Labor.  One of his statements that again grabbed me was that he wished he had done more when he had the power of his position.  He said that, at that time, he did as much as he dared.  He now has some regret that, perhaps, he did not dare greatly.
 
We are entering an unprecedented time in American history.  Each day the news of the upcoming administration’s plans, appointments, relationships, and rhetoric increases my alarm.  I have never felt more vulnerable.  I fear we may be on the cusp of an American holocaust manufactured and aided by the hate-proliferating algorithms of social media.

While many have analyzed the outcome of the presidential election and criticized Kamala Harris’s and the Democrat’s messaging, the truth is that hope, optimism, and reason do not get the same traction on social media that hate and conspiracy theories do.  These sites are built to manipulate the users in order to increase engagement.  This is well documented, and Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans know this and mine it like gold. They are master manipulators themselves.  Today the headlines shout that Meta will no longer being doing fact-checking because Trump and the MAGA Republicans consider fact-checking an attack on free speech.  Honesty is not their brand.  Relentless lying and hate are.  A vocal, angry, hate-filled minority now influence all decisions that disrupt the common good.  We are losing our minds, civility, and our country for the sake of selling ads on social media. 

I never intended for this blog to become a political one.  I realize now that from the moment we draw our first breaths, air quality becomes an issue.  We become political.  Now, with the stakes so high, I fear for the future of my children and yours.

I see now that the gift of older age is daring. There is little time left and much less to lose, and so I commit now to daring greatly in the days, weeks, months, and, if God provides, the years to come.

Individually, we do not have the power of a single oligarch.  But collectively, we do. They made their fortunes from us, and we can each do something toward the greater good.  We have choices to make.  Posting on X is a choice.  What to post is a choice.  Reading the Washington Post is a choice.  Buying from Amazon is a choice.  Commenting on Facebook is a choice.  How to comment and what to share are choices. Giving away our healthy minds and mental health to participate in conspiracy theories to sell ads is a choice.

Words have power--some words more than others.  Hateful words and distorted facts grab us and the social media oligarchs know this.  Our brains are tuned to discrepancies and resentment—turning those thoughts over and over again in our minds, we try to make sense of them and we become increasingly emotional and less rational in the process.  But we can all choose and use our words more carefully.  We must find a way to be heard without being hate-filled.

“What about the other guy” provides neither an excuse  nor an explanation.  Pointing out someone else’s faults and bad behavior is a way of getting away with murder and creating helplessness.  We must stay focused on the actions, words, and behaviors that are troublesome.  And we must dare to speak out, to write letters, to send emails.  The 85% of thoughtful, informed Americans who care about issues must find a voice to speak over the vocal 15% influencing public discourse and decisions.  It is exhausting, I know.  But it is necessary.  My constant mental companions and advisors are the voices of the actual Holocaust survivors I have known.

The measure of daring will be unique to each of us and to our circumstances, but every day we have an opportunity to, in some way, elevate and transform the world we live in.  Please join me in the arena in the days to come. 

I double dog dare you.