Feelings, But No Words

I’m sure you have strong thoughts and powerful feelings about the current events in the world right now. I do. I have the thoughts, the feelings, but the words to express them, those I’ve been struggling with. 

I’m grateful for those who have managed to sort out their own house enough to help me work on mine: how is this world is so apparently divided and going through the worst of conflicts and yet how can it still be wonderful at the same time. My inability to express how I feel is no longer an excuse for my inaction and paralysis.

Shakespeare wrote, ‘All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players’. One day you and I will have to leave this stage. At our last bow and final curtain call, we both will be able to look back and say, ‘We were a part of that. We were there. We were in it. Right in the middle as it all happened’. 

We can’t change the world until we are prepared to change ourselves. We can’t change ourselves unless we are prepared to look through new eyes. We are not invisible to each other unless we are choosing not to see.

Just because we don’t understand, have time, the words or we would rather look away. We cannot say that we are achieving, successful, compassionate, and loving if there are other people in the world who are living in a neverending nightmare.

We have to look.

People like you and I do make a difference. We’ve probably never heard of them but we have heard and know our own name. We may be unable to express how we feel. But feelings are enough.

We may not change the world, but we can change the world under our feet.

We may not feel right now that we have the power to change policies, laws, guidelines but we always have the power to change minds, that is where the power really lies.

I read the other day, ‘The world has always been like this, it was worse when … get used to it!’ No, I won’t. I am alive now. That counts. So are you. We are the cavalry. Us.

We can do better than this. More even. What we don’t understand, we educate ourselves on. Where we have stopped listening, we can open ourselves again. Where we think we can’t make a road inward or a difference, we can do what we can. We can look up. We can look at each other, remind ourselves that the person looking back at us, is us.

We can challenge. We can take action. We can ask others what they would like us to do if we don’t know ourselves. We can choose to leave the path of me, and join the one of we. We can come off the sidelines and join the match, pick up the ball and run. We don’t have to offer opinions and solutions – we might not have them – but we can give people space to simply be heard.

I can’t expect things to be different purely by my good intentions. I may never have the ‘right’ words, but I do know my feelings and my intuition, these will help me see completely. Knowing them is all the power I need to act. So, what about you …?