We must learn to face the present and future as solutionaries.
[Zoe Weil, M.A., M.T.S., is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Human Education]
This morning on Facebook, many friends were sharing their despair and
outrage over what had transpired during the previous 48 hours in the U.S.
government.
I could relate.
I’d been up much of the night and had spent the previous day in a mopey,
largely unproductive funk. I’d felt stunned by what had just transpired in
American politics (even as I knew that it was time to stop feeling stunned
each time politicians did and said things I found incomprehensible and
infuriating). My despair and outrage threatened to eclipse all else.
This is not a political post, though. It is a post about how to think and
feel differently, and what to do to resist despair, rage, and feelings of
powerlessness.
You must become a solutionary.
Solutionary: a person who is able to identify inhumane and
unsustainable systems and then develop solutions that are healthy and just,
for people, animals and the environment. [Source: Institute for Human
Education]
What if, in the face of your despair and outrage, you consciously and
deliberately chose to bring a solutionary lens to what terrified and enraged
you, whether in politics or any other sphere?
What if, when you felt most helpless, you mapped out the systems that cause
so much dysfunction and suffering, identified real leverage points for
change, and actively pursued a viable solution to a problem?
What if you reached out to those people whom you perceive to be ideological
“enemies” and asked them, in good faith, to work together to devise a
solution to a problem that concerned you both?
What if you succeeded in solving that problem?
Imagine how your thoughts about your perceived “enemy” might shift. Imagine
how empowered you would feel to take on the next problem and the one after
that.
What if bringing a solutionary lens to every issue and problem
became your norm?
It’s hard to overstate how powerful a solutionary mindset can be for
creating actual change, solving persistent problems, and restoring and
maintaining psychological well-being.
Like any new activity, cultivating a solutionary mindset takes practice.
If you want to build your muscles, you work out. If you want to learn a new
subject, you study. And if you want to be a solutionary, you diligently
follow a solutionary process until thinking and acting like a solutionary
become second nature.
I’m not going to pretend that this is easy. It’s not. I’ve articulated and
written about this solutionary process; given TEDx talks about it; taught
others how to be solutionaries; and incorporated solutionary courses into
the graduate programs offered by the organization I work for.
If anyone should have a solutionary mindset, it should be me. And yet, I
started this post by describing just how awful I felt yesterday, and how
unproductive I was as a result. Solutionaries are not immune to despair and
outrage, but as we get better at thinking and acting like solutionaries,
these feelings diminish both in their duration and frequency.
By mid-morning, I was hard at work connecting with educators teaching their
students to be solutionaries. I was deeply enlivened by their enthusiasm and
effort. It turned out to be a very energizing and productive day.
Joan Baez once said, “Action is the antidote to despair.”
This quote has come to my rescue many times. But these days, I would offer a less poetic but perhaps even more hopeful quote: Solutionary action is the antidote to just about everything.
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