BETTER

When things don’t go as planned and we need to do a “reset”, I often say to myself or others, “let’s just move forward” or “as long as we are moving forward, we can make progress.”

Some of us can get frustrated, deflated, or feel defeated when things seem to not move in the direction we intend or expect. Some of us can feel overwhelmed when it seems our every move forward takes us backwards or we look around and we are standing still without any movement. Over time this can be exhausting!

This may be how some of feel about now as we look around at our circumstances stimulated by COVID-19. Easily grasped by highlighting our health issues and care disparities, the changes and gaps in employment, the change in how we work, change in how we engage with each other, how education methods are shifting, how housing norms are changing, how we entertain and are entertained is changing, how, what and where we eat is changing. And for some of us, it’s not about how, what, when or where, it’s IF we have health care, IF we are educated, IF we have the opportunity to work, IF we have a home to live in, or IF we eat. Life as we knew it has morphed on so many levels and has impacted all of us in some way. It has created what I might call a “greater divide” among us.

To this I say, there must be something better for us. Pain, struggle, discontent cannot and does not last. I want to believe we are all going through a significant learning experience. Painful as it may be, I believe when we see life with hope and aspirations for something better, encouraging life experiences reveal themselves to us. However tough or dismal the circumstance may be, our positive attitude, perseverance, persistence, and determination to make things better yields outcomes more extraordinary than we imagined.

Today, I ask that we each reimagine, reinvent, reconstruct and maybe recommit to what we believe will be better for ourselves, our families, our colleagues, our friends, even those whose point of view is different than our own. We must gather together to listen, to learn, to grow and to become something better than we are experiencing today. There is more than enough love, joy, intelligence and success to go around. There’s much work to be done to heal. There’s much work to be done to improve who we are to embrace what is better for all of us and not only some of us.

The challenge or opportunity requires courageous leadership. The courage to share. The courage to be open and walk in another’s shoes. The courage to be vulnerable. The courage to lead by faith, facing our fears, moving through it, trusting that greatness prevails for all with open caring hearts. We, each of us, must choose to be great, not better than someone, simply the greatest of who we are. It starts with being a better you …every day.

Bold and brilliant mindsets and actions are necessary for change and better outcomes.

Engaged leadership and followers working towards common goals with best intentions are necessary for thoughtful change and better outcomes

Trouble. “Good Trouble” as defined by John Lewis allows for troubled waters to create necessary empowered change for better outcomes

Tenacious actions bring to bear a persistence that catapults forward movement even when we falter, for systemic change and better outcomes.

Energetic and enthusiastic passion yields the motivation and inspiration that is necessary for unstoppable, impactful change and better outcomes.

better

Resiliency and relentless commitment to solve the issues of injustice, inequality, and divisiveness is necessary for courageous change and better outcomes.

May we each choose to make the necessary changes we seek to achieve better outcomes for ourselves, for others, and for the impact we want to leave on the world.

Someone once said, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”

As Chadwick Boseman once said in an interview after the release of “Black Panther” with Trevor Noah, “Be your own hero.” Choose the legacy you want to leave by the actions you take each and every day.

Much Love,

Sherrie

My September blog is in honor of my husband, Michael Eric Littlejohn.

“Happy Birthday, My Love.”