Helplessness is a feeling I absolutely detest. I’m an action person by nature, and whenever I feel victimized, my blood starts boiling and my reflexes tell me to do something about it.
Since the brutal attack on Israel by the Hamas terrorists on October 7th, that is generally how I feel every day – angry as hell. But I didn’t know how to channel that emotion until I conversed with my daughter today at lunch. She said in not quite these words, “All I can do is bring my best self to the world and know that my contributions (she works in health care) can make a difference.”
She’s right, and it got me thinking about ways, albeit simple, I/we, as readers, can be our best selves and begin to make a difference. What if every classroom, book club, and independent reader selected, read, and discussed a book about a culture, race, ethnicity, or sexual identity different from our own during November, a month we express extra gratitude for our families and lives.
In the aggregate, across a neighborhood, town, county, state, or country, just consider what an enormous difference this could make. Building a more tolerant world won’t happen overnight. Still, it can happen through reading and gaining deeper insights into the people outside our families, religions, and cultures.
How about it….? I'm going to read, Oprah's pick, Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward.
Good idea Jane!