It’s been an interesting week for me. With the political race for president heating up, a lot of coworkers and friends have opinions they want to share. I’m a bit of a trouble maker, so I’ll almost always take the opposite view, for fun if nothing else. I was on the debate team in high school, and I’ve been playing devil’s advocate ever since. Beyond politics, there has also been a situation closer to home that’s caused a small uproar. These are two completely different topics, but I noticed a common thread through both of them. The friends I’ve spoken with feel powerless to create change. This is a terrible thing, people!
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead
I love that quote because it speaks to me not only as a citizen, but as a person. Change is not something we can sit around and wait for, especially if we’re talking about change in our personal situation…we have to create it. When we start to feel powerless as a people, we start to lose our rights, our freedom, and our ability to be heard. When we start to feel powerless as an individual, we lose any hope of creating the life that we want and that we can have if we make intentional decisions. We all face challenges in our lives and as a society. I know that my children will inherit problems that have no obvious solution. I also believe that these obstacles can be overcome, but only if we own them.
For me, that’s meant owning a shopping habit that was not easy to break and the credit card debt that came with it. That’s not exactly something you want to lay claim to, but once I did, it gave me the power to make a change, because it was no longer something that happened to me, it was something that I made happen. And if you can make bad things happen, you can make good things happen too.
Here is my challenge this week: take ownership of the change you want to see happen in your life. Whether that means improving your finances, your relationships, or your golf game, realize that you have the power to create change for yourself and then make it happen. Let’s own this thing together. I’m Claire, the Afena blog mom. Thanks for reading.