Find “your people” and seek solace
Build a strong local network beyond yourself.
As social media sources are becoming politicized, you may lose touch with friends you have only known on social media. Now is the time to reach out and exchange real contact information (emails and phones) so you can continue to stay in touch. Clean up your existing contacts.
Include community activists and local elected officials to your contact lists.
Join or build coalitions of allies on issues you care about.
Go to local community meetings where you can build relationships with other citizens as well as civic leaders. Bring along a friend or family member.
Organize people who agree with you. Invite them to join organizations you value. Host gatherings and circulate emails about your ideas, hopes, and concerns.
Dialogue with people who don’t agree with you. Find a way to have a conversation to understand their thinking. Once you understand one another better, you might tackle deeper differences.
Volunteering is an easy way to meet other people in your community and build your local network, whether you are working for a political cause or something that benefits your neighbors.
Try to make some changes beyond your immediate circle of control.
Engage with younger people, who historically vote less frequently.
Engaging younger people (even kids!) in democracy in a meaningful and sustained way will have long-term benefits.
Sit down with someone under the age of 25, and learn a bit about their thoughts on politics and democracy.
Here’s to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world.
They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible.
Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go.
Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world.
Be the hero you are looking for.
Peace is possible.
It begins with us
L. R. Knost