There are years that ask questions,
and years that answer.
~Zora Neale Hurston
This holiday break is a welcome change from a whirlwind year of both questions and answers for me. So I’m sharing the questions that remain, the questions that I’m asking myself as 2015 comes to a close.
Maybe you’ll recognize a few of them…
***
Did I embrace change, or resist it? Did I welcome challenges and seize opportunities, or shrink from them? When did I push myself outside of my comfort zone? What did I do for the first time?
To what, or whom, did I give power? What kinds of power (personal, positional and institutional) did I use to change the status quo?
What kind of leader am I? Did I let generosity lead me, or fear? Did I remember how small (and powerful) I am?
Did I let the “musts, shoulds, and have-to’s” rule me? When did I question “the rules,” especially when they hurt people?
How am I walking in solidarity? Am I, as a cis white woman born in the U.S., offering the kinds of support to the local and global movements that will transform our society?
How did I challenge my own biases, -isms, and pre-conceived notions? How did I wear my privilege?
Did I find out, or did I suppose? Did I listen, or speak more? Was I able to observe without evaluating?
When did I embrace risk, or did I value too much the logic, the odds, the compliments?
Did I make up my own mind, or care too much about what others think?
Did I reject perfect? (What a fallacy!)
Where did I dally too long? Did I exhaust all possibilities?
What fascinated me? Where and when did I encounter wonder?
What did I celebrate?
What did I have the courage to ask for? When did I ask for help? When did I ask for feedback? When could I have asked sooner? Did I receive with grace?
Was I my own hero, or was I too busy saving others?
Did I allow myself to rest and find peace, or did I focus too much on “productivity”? Did I do enough to nourish my body, my heart, my creativity, my soul?
Did I give myself permission to say no often enough?
How did I conduct myself between the amazing and the awful, the peaceful and the wild? How did I walk through the ordinary, the routine, the mundane?
Where did I find the humor, the ridiculous, the silly?
How often did I notice the beautiful souls around me? Who did I look at, but did not see?
Did I lift up what connects us, rather than what divides us? Did I give my “enemies” chances to become my allies and collaborators?
Was I an enthusiast, or a naysayer?
Did I walk in the world with my heart, or use my head as a battering ram?
Did I make enough mistakes? Did I let myself and others learn from them? Did I own up to what I did/do not know? Did I allow myself to be taught by everyone and everything around me?
To what or whom was I loyal?
What “good fights” did I lose? Is it the fighting that mattered?
Could I have tread more softly on this precious earth?
Was I light in a dark world?
***
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Very meaningful and pertinent post! I asked myself many of these questions too. And found that I do need to learn to say no more often. And that I need to respect my body (and its need to take a break!) and my relationships more. And that, each assignment and each day can teach me more if I let it! Thanks for this post.
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