The Reluctant Activist

INTRINSIC

We have to learn how to find the intrinsic rewards of doing and saying what is right.

In a country where the greedy, corrupt, and wicked have successfully done a hostile and unethical takeover of every government branch, practically every government agency from national to local; where they have used technology and mind tricks for massive disinformation to dupe the clueless and those who aspire to the same kind of greed; where they have preyed on the impoverished, desperate, and powerless to manipulate and exploit them; where they have hijacked even media; we’re going to find our wins, if any, to be few and far in between.

We activists, overthinkers, truth warriors, justice advocates, patriots will continue to feel frustrated, sad, angry, revolted, confused, and exhausted. And we will always feel like taking the easy way out—silent submission. Or like the Roques of the world, we’ll tell ourselves, if we can’t beat ‘em, then just join them. Or we’ll just allow them to completely break our spirit. But we won’t, shouldn’t, and can’t.

We don’t know when events would start to arc towards justice and truth. We don’t even know if we’d see the light at the end of this dark tunnel in this lifetime. So we have to find victory and satisfaction in doing what we believe is right; stubbornly adhering to our values, principles, and beliefs. Even when the world and minions want us to feel like losers. Even when they laugh at us, gaslight, threaten, and insult us. Just know in each moment they mock and bully us that we have not sold out, copped out, given up. And we have done what is right for the right reasons. They can’t win over us if that is our standard.

Let the greedy have their money; let the power-hungry have their power. We are not envious nor bitter because we don’t want those things anyway, not at the expense of this country. We don’t want unethically gotten wealth that was earned by oppressing and robbing others. We don’t want the wins that enable injustice and keep the poor, poor, the ignorant, ignorant. We don’t want the kinds of advantages that come with self-loathing and fear because you know you had to cheat, lie, kill, steal, and commit crimes to acquire.

We win every day. Not in the way the worldly defines victory. But in our minds and hearts in the way our wise parents, mentors, leaders, teachers, pastors, friends, our faith, our conscience, our logic have defined and refined for us.

We are not losing. It’s just that the rules of the game have been obfuscated by evil men and women. They are not outwitting us. It’s just that they are playing a different game where they outdo each other in doing what is evil. We can’t win in their games because we have opted not to be part of all that.

Our heroes gave up their lives, their freedoms, and their comforts for this country. For sure, whatever money, power, or fame they might have received as extrinsic rewards were no match to what they have sacrificed. They found the intrinsic.

Don’t be and don’t feel like a loser. You have to tell yourself what’s in it for you. For me, it’s being able to face my parents, my husband, my leaders, my peers, the people who matter most to me and not feeling any shame. It’s being able to pray knowing I pray for what is right. And it is about liking and loving myself. And that is a win.

Note:

The Reluctant Activist is not me (Star) but I share her thoughts and she articulated them well.  That is why I am reposting it here.