Erol Ahmed; Unsplash
While the idea of new year’s resolutions can sometimes feel artificial, there is a meaningful core concept there: a ritual moment to try and reset ourselves, to assess our lives and resolve to make the changes we want. This year, what would it look like to make sure at least some of our resolutions address our responsibility toward building a better world? Envision utilizing tools we’re already familiar with and might be applying to other goals: taking on accountability partners and structures, seeking out experts and dedicating funds to utilizing their expertise, setting aside dedicated time to learn from and work together with groups who are organizing for justice within our communities.
If you are among those who wish you’d shown up differently – more actively, more bravely – over the mass mobilization moments of the past years, take a moment to imagine: that version of yourself who would have been ready to step up as fully as possible, what would they be doing? And more importantly, what keeps you from being there yet? Whatever it is, start doing that work now.
If you need to, start small. Follow activists on social media to find out what they’re working on and where you might be needed. Look up when the next meeting or event is happening with an organization you admire and check to see if they need volunteers – step by step, you’ll build the knowledge and relationships you need. But make sure you’re committing to the deeper work as well: we all have to continually examine the sources of our discomfort and learn to better wrestle through them. The sources below provide some powerful entry points to working through some of those ideas.
At this moment of new year’s resolutions, let’s grab this moment to once again work towards better – we owe it to ourselves and each other.
— Sarra Alpert, Director of the Avodah Institute for Social Change
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