This is the first week of my book tour, and I’m so excited to be able to meet so many of you. Sometimes I think back to when this all started, and I still can’t believe that all of this is real. Seeing your faces as I am in 14 cities over the next month is going to be life-changing.
The Small and the Mighty is about unsung Americans who changed the course of history. But it’s easy to think, “That’s great for them, but I am just over here trying to put food on the table,” or, “It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open after work.” Life is just… hard. I really do get it.
I talked about this recently with Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers, the women behind the popular podcast, Pantsuit Politics.
They understand the power of doing something.
I think too often people get bogged down in the notion of, “I have to fix it all. I have to solve what’s wrong with public education, or I have to overhaul the criminal justice system.” We let the enormity of the world’s problems keep us paralyzed with indecision on how to help.
And I’m here to tell you: the answer is to just do something. Stop letting the wheels of your mind spin, and just pick up an oar and start rowing.
Sarah went to law school and and Beth is a lawyer. But they both found one of the best ways to contribute to their community was by becoming occasional substitute teachers.
“I knew my school system was desperate and I’ve really found in the last few years that volunteering on the ground as opposed to serving on a committee or a board of directors is a better fit for me,” Sarah told me.
And one of the best parts of doing it is that it changed their perspective about what it means to be a teacher.
Sarah said she never truly understood the toll teaching takes on educators psychologically until you’ve done it, calling it a “full body, soul, mind, spirit situation.” (And let me tell you firsthand: this is 100% true. When I was a baby teacher, I would come home from school and lie on the couch, wondering what was wrong with me that I was utterly and completely exhausted. And I worked two jobs while going to college full time, so I was used to long hours. It took me months to both build stamina and learn how to budget my energy.)
Not all of us can be substitute teachers, even once in a while. So how do we find some way that we can contribute?
Beth suggests starting with a self-assessment: what are you good at, what are you interested in, and how much time do you have to give to this effort? She said, “those things will intersect around something that contributes to our civic life. If you don’t have ideas about where they intersect, I bet your local librarian would, or your friend who works for a non-profit, or a teacher in your school system. Answer those questions and brainstorm with someone you trust. You’ll get connected to meaningful work quickly.”
Sarah says the biggest detriment to action is trying to think through all possible outcomes rather than just taking the leap. It’s ok if the first thing you try isn’t the right fit. You can always move on to something else. (I am screaming, “COSIGN, COSIGN.” Stop worrying about “is this the best and most meaningful thing I could do, and realize that just trying something out will often answer that question for you.)
How about doing something that helps you connect with another person? Like asking an elderly neighbor over for coffee. Or dropping off a meal or groceries to someone in your town that needs a little help? If it’s worth doing for everyone, it’s worth doing for one person. If you think all people should have enough food, it’s worth helping even one person. If you think all seniors should have a friend to visit them, it’s worth being a friend to one.
There are also ways you can contribute to your community without even leaving your home.
Beth pointed out to me: “You’re doing something when you’re raising kind kids. I think we tend to devalue caregiving in these conversations, so I always want to lift that up. A lot of the people who are saying, ‘I just want to do something to make the world better’ are already doing it.”
Before you discount your own contributions, think about what you’re doing every day. Are you raising your kids to be kind and caring? I can’t think of a better way to give back to the world than by building a generation of good people.
And one way to do that is by asking yourself not just how you can make the world better for your own kids, but how you can make the world better for all kids.
It’s easy to agree on that, right? Don’t we all want to make the world the best place it can be for all children, not just your own?
Sarah says, “Too often we push each other until we’re at a place where we believe the other side doesn’t care about kids and I remind myself all the time that simply isn’t true. Maybe we define what ‘care’ looks like differently but the most intense partisan would not turn away from my child if they were in danger. Centering our literal shared humanity -- the future generations we all depend on to keep going forward -- in that way helps me remember the person in front of me is more than their politics.”
You can subscribe to Pantsuit Politics here. Sarah and Beth are great examples of what it means to be the small and the mighty. And you can be too, just by doing what you can, where you are, with the resources available to you.
The Small and the Mighty is finally here! Buying the hardcover book (the NYT list only counts hardcovers, I know, I know…) before September 28th would be SO beneficial. This is the last week to claim your bonuses with your book purchase!
I can’t wait to continue my book tour and meet as many of you as I can!
You can still grab tickets in these cities:
Phoenix (there are only a few tickets left!)
Austin (there are only a few tickets left!)