Risk
(I wrote this in June 2020, but didn’t press the publish button. Today, April 2021, I publish it).
At the weekend I sent this tweet:
Firstly, thank you to those who replied or sent a DM. Yes, I’m fine. Sometimes it’s just nice to blow off a little steam, and I thank you for your care you’ve shown today. In the same way, I hope, I’m supportive of you when you blow off steam, I know I can rely on you all too. Thank you.
By sharing ourselves online, through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, etc. we allow others into the inner sanctum of our lives. Some do this more than others, and some more deliberately than others. The scary part is that often we don’t need an invitation to peek into someone else’s life, we just need to follow a link, a shared #hashtag, follow a tagged photo of someone who knows someone who’s tagged in a photo somewhere I went last year, etc. It’s that easy to snoop, and that difficult to stop.
The below is a little of what I wrote and deleted.
Why the title ‘risk’? Writing something then deleting it, and tweeting about it, gets people thinking. ‘ooh, what’s bugging him then?’ or ‘not all is happy in that place?’. Nope, believe it or not, I’m not always thinking about work-related stuff. Often, yes, but not always. Yes, my job can be tiring and frustrating, in the same way it can be invigorating and inspiring. I tweet about both ends of the spectrum about how I feel about my job. I also have a life outside my job (sometimes I forget that but, yes, I do) and that can be equally frustrating or invigorating.
The world has gone mad at the moment. In the grip of a global pandemic, the people who are charged with keeping us safe are following foolhardy economic principles and not the science. Lives are being put at risk to keep the wealth (and wealthy) happy. Oppressed and the persecuted are in the headlines again, trying to get the credit and acknowledgment for the need of a fair and just world, whilst the oppressors are trying to keep control of the unjust system, one that benefits themselves and their motives. The environmental disasters, once the main focus or every headline 6 months ago are being ignored, even more so now – professional sport is on again, yet the environment is still heading to a grim fate, and us with it.
The risk is sometimes greater when you say nothing than when you say something. To keep quiet in the current economic or political or environmental climate is no longer an option. In order to bring the change we want for ourselves, our neighbours, our co-workers, our children, and our combined futures, we must speak up and we must hold those in authority to account. We did, after all, elect them there. We can, after all this, elect someone else to take their place, someone who (hopefully) can do a better job of it.
For me. For my kids.
Photo by Cristofer Jeschke on Unsplash
