Dear Lisa,

I’ve walked through the past week and change in a heavy haze. People ask how I am and I snap to life, smiling, before remembering: that’s only half the story. I’m horrified, I’m furious, I’m at loose ends. I want to be changed by what’s going on. Habits and hopes I’ve held dear feel absurd right now. But tossing it all to the wind feels rash, too. What is it to resist?

In your letter, you wrote:

I wonder, when people ask, “Where are you from?” And you reply, “Michigan” or “Ann Arbor,” do they ever ask again? Do they ever say, “But where are you really from?”

They never do, ever. So that’s the end of that story. I’ve felt like an outsider — as an expat, an immigrant, in Germany; as a woman working in tech — but never a hated one. I am seldom misunderstood.

This should leave me with more vim for the fight, but I’ve been stuck. Scanning Twitter all day long — a feed I’ve filled, follow by follow, with voices dedicated to justice — leaves my heart in knots. Depleted, I’ll fall asleep, having talked myself into and out of a thousand different acts of defiance electrified by voices I’ve chosen to trust. Their words have washed over me in waves. Meanwhile, I’ve lain motionless.

Yesterday, I read a true, fair piece that held soothing words. “If you want to be effective on anything, pick an issue or two that matter most to you and fight for them. Let the others go.” And: “You don’t have to suffer to make a difference.” For a second, the soothing worked. And then I remembered: I haven’t done anything yet.

I have to do something; inertia is unacceptable. But whatever I do, it needs to have a hope of lasting. And as I thought about that in the shower this morning, I remembered something I realized during my last coaching workshop: there is no lasting action without resonance. The choices that stick, that stand up on their own, are the ones drawn from deep awareness.

I’m hunting for my own resonant actions. I have a few in mind. One resonant action that is within reach, I’ve realized, is coaching others toward choosing their own. So I’m going to try that, and see if it makes a difference. Hopelessness is a waste, but so is my flailing. Focus is resistance.

Love,
Diana