The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

I believe that each of us carries a bit of inner brightness, something entirely unique and individual. A flame that's worth protecting. When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it. When we learn to foster what's unique in the people around us, we become better able to build compassionate communities and make meaningful change.

Our hurts become our fears. Our fears become our limits. For many of us, this can be a heavy inheritance, carried by generations. It’s a lot to try to push back against, to try to unlearn.

If you choose to try to make a life with another person, you will live by that choice. You'd find yourself having to choose again and again to remain rather than run. It helps if you enter into a committed relationship prepared to work, ready to be humbled and willing to accept and even enjoy living in that in-between space, bouncing between the poles of beautiful and horrible, sometimes in the span of a single conversation, sometimes over the course of years. And inside of that choice and those years you'll almost certainly come to see that there is no such thing as a 50-50 balance, instead it will be like beads on an abacus, sliding back and forth, the maths rarely tidy, the equation never quite solved....

Life has shown me that strong friendships are most often the result of strong intentions. Your table needs to be deliberately built, deliberately populated, and deliberately tended to.

Going high is about learning to keep the poison out and the power in.

Read books by people whose perspective is different from yours, listen to voices you haven’t heard before, look for narratives that are new to you. In them and with them, you might end up finding more room for yourself.

One light feeds another. One strong family lends strength to more. One engaged community can ignite those around it. This is the power of the light we carry.

When we allow ourselves to celebrate tiny victories as important and meaningful, we start to understand the incremental nature of change—how one vote can help change our democracy; how raising a child who is whole and loved can help change a nation; how educating one girl can change a whole village for the better.

Being different conditions you toward cautiousness, even as it demands being bold.

There’s no way to eliminate the ache of being human, but I do think we can diminish it. This starts when we challenge ourselves to become less afraid to share, more ready to listen—when the wholeness of your story adds to the wholeness of mine. I see a little of you. You see a little of me. We can’t know all of it, but we’re better off as familiars. Any time we grip hands with another soul and recognize some piece of the story they’re trying to tell, we are acknowledging and affirming two truths at once: We’re lonely and yet we’re not alone.

I lean on each individual at different times and in different ways. Which is another thing worth recognizing about friendship. No one person, no one relationship will fulfill your every need. Not every friend can offer you safety or support on every day. Not every one can or will show up precisely when or how you need them to. And this is why it's good to continue always making room at your table, to keep yourself open to gathering more friends. You will never not need them, and you will never stop learning from them.

When someone chooses to lift the curtain on a perceived imperfection in her story, on a circumstance or condition that traditionally might be considered to be a weakness, what she’s often actually revealing is the source code for her steadiness and strength.

It’s okay to pace yourself, get a little rest, and speak of your struggles out loud. It’s okay to prioritize your wellness,

We only hurt ourselves when we hide our realness away.

Go forth with a spoonful of fear and return with a wagonful of competence.

worry and discomfort of taking a risk, you’re potentially costing yourself an opportunity. In clinging only to what you know, you are making your world small. You are robbing yourself of chances to grow.

Our differences are treasures and they’re also tools. They are useful, valid, worthy, and important to share. Recognizing this, not only in ourselves but in the people around us, we begin to rewrite more and more stories of not-mattering. We start to change the paradigms around who belongs, creating more space for more people. Step by step by step, we can lessen the loneliness of not-belonging.

There’s nothing easy about finding your way through a world loaded with obstacles that others can’t or don’t see. When you are different, you can feel as if you’re operating with a different map, a different set of navigational challenges, than those around you. Sometimes, you feel like you have no map at all. Your differentness will often precede you into a room; people see it before they see you. Which leaves you with the task of overcoming

Real-world connections most often tend to cut against stereotypes. They can be remarkably calming, in fact—a small but potent way to reset a bad mood or challenge broader feelings of mistrust. The only thing is that in order to get there, you do first need to lay down your shield.

Going high is something you do rather than merely feel. It’s not some call to be complacent and wait around for change, or to sit on the sidelines as others struggle. It is not about accepting the conditions of oppression or letting cruelty and power go unchallenged. The notion of going high shouldn’t raise any questions about whether we are obligated to fight for more fairness, decency, and justice in this world; rather, it’s about how we fight, how we go about trying to solve the problems we encounter, and how we sustain ourselves long enough to be effective rather than burn out.

Friends will come and go, taking on more or less importance as you move through different phases of life. You may have a small group of friends, or just a few one-on-one friendships. All of that is okay. What matters most is the quality of your relationships. It’s good to be discerning about who you trust, who you bring close. With new relationships, I find myself quietly assessing whether I feel safe and whether, inside the context of a budding friendship, I feel seen and appreciated for who I am. With our friends, we are always looking for very simple reassurances that we matter, that our light is recognized and our voice is heard—and we owe our friends the same. I want to say, too, that it’s okay to step back from or downsize a difficult friendship. Sometimes we have to let certain friends go, or at least diminish our reliance on them.

Because here’s the thing: Emotions are not plans. They don’t solve problems or right any wrongs. You can feel them—you will feel them, inevitably—but be careful about letting them guide you. Rage can be a dirty windshield. Hurt is like a broken steering wheel. Disappointment will only ride, sulking and unhelpful, in the back seat. If you don’t do something constructive with them, they’ll take you straight into a ditch. My power has always hinged on my ability to keep myself out of the ditch.

What does it mean to be comfortably afraid? For me, the idea is simple. It’s about learning to deal wisely with fear, finding a way to let your nerves guide you rather than stop you. It’s settling yourself in the presence of life’s inevitable zombies and monsters so that you may contend with them more rationally, and trusting your own assessment of what’s harmful and what’s not. When you live this way, you are neither fully comfortable nor fully afraid. You accept that there’s a middle zone and learn to operate inside of it, awake and aware, but not held back.

The only love story I know, is the one I happen to live inside everyday. Your path towards certainty, if that's even what you're after, will look different from mine. Just as your conception of home and who belongs there with you, will always be unique to you. Only slowly do most of us figure out what we need in intimate relationships and what we're able to give to them. We practice, we learn, we mess up. We sometimes acquire tools that don't actually serve us. ...we obsess, overthink and misplace our energy...we retreat when hurt, we armor up when scared, we might attack when provoked, or yield when ashamed.

when it does work, it can feel like an actual, honest-to-god miracle, which is what love is, after all. That’s the whole point. Any long-term partnership, really, is an act of stubborn faith.

I've progressed only slowly to where I am today. If you are a young person reading this, please remember to be patient with yourself. You are at the beginning of a long and interesting journey, one that will not always be comfortable. You will spend years gathering data about who you are and how you operate and only slowly will you find your way towards more certainty and a stronger sense of self. Only gradually will you begin to discover and use your light!

The goal, instead, is to find someone who will do the work with you, not for you, contributing on all fronts and in all ways.