Despair
Most days, I wake up with so much despair.
Dark, gnarly, snarky, incessant, familiar, unrelenting despair.
Despair about mentally ill IDF soldiers making TikTok videos about murder.
Despair about the trash US political bozos clapping for a genocidal psychopath.
Despair about my city who pre-games crying about wildfire smoke by flying fighter jets for a week.
Despair about armed police with the emotional capacity of a 6-year-old killing unarmed black people.
Despair about the number of sticky notes saying, "Don't lose half your day scrolling about things you can't control."
Somehow, over the years, my mind and body have figured out that the despair has to go somewhere for my day to move along.
Some days, the despair diffuses on its own. It floats away like a wispy cloud. Slowly and gradually, right in front of my eyes, without me seeing how it happened.
Phew, lucky day.
On other days, that cloud is dense. Stagnant. Lingering. It needs some wind to blow it away.
That wind might be
Ten pages of journaling
An hour of stretching
A longer morning meditation
The dewy leaves of my veggie garden
A decedent breakfast
A cup of coffee. Turkish. Single task
A phone call with someone who gets it
or all the above
Some days, the clouds ain't going nowhere, and I have to just accept that and drop my expectations of a productive day.
Just keep that self-care coming.
Despair tells me all kinds of stories.
It shoves optimism and motivation out of the way and screams GIVE UP. SAVE YOURSELF. NUMB OUT. YOU HAVE NO POWER. NO ONE CARES.
It climbs on my shoulders and tries to steer.
Yes, you can picture it yanking on my ears.
Despair is part of me
It wants to warn me
To protect me from a world of pain
Misguided but sincere
So, on a good day, I don't reject it.
I get to choose
Lead my life through despair
Or
Through other parts of me that the world needs.
Kindness. Joy. Patience. Love. Passion. Silliness. Tenderness. Optimism.
I know that for me to honor my external purpose, to do my work and serve, the clouds of despair must float on.
They can only float when I honor my internal purpose and do the work of fully accepting these clouds.
These clouds are not mine alone. They are the same clouds that floated in the hearts of every single justice warrior, civil rights activist, and environmental protector.
In the hearts of my ancestors who survived empire for millennia.
In the hearts of Palestinian liberation fighters who resisted invisibly.
With much less of the hope and solidarity I receive today.
They have all figured out how to use despair as a source of strength.
They didn't let the despair steer.
They saw into the future. Through the clouds.
They knew that without doing their work, I wouldn't be able to do mine.
They didn't let the despair steer.
They transformed it into power and dreams.
" I wake up honestly most mornings despairing at what I'm seeing. The question for me then is, do I let that control my day? Do I let that control my thought, my word, and my action? Or do I use the despair as the very rich mud to transform that into the lotus? For me, there's no teaching that is as clear as no mud, no lotus, because that is the kernel of transformation. And if we can all give that to ourselves every day, then we can make space for the despair and the anger and maybe even the hatred. And at the same time be able to make space for the reconciliation and for the growth in our shared humanity that we all are living."
Christiana Figueres
Former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Lead the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
