365 Days of Love. Day 153

I frequently take thought trips, wrestling with the ideas of oppression and empowerment. I understand how slip into oppression. I’ve lived in communities where one’s existence is solely dependent on another person or entity. I’ve also seen friends seek unrealistic proportions per some image they’ve been told is “right.” I’ve witnessed incredibly kind people turn bitter after being taken advantage of one too many times. Even I, an educated, supported individual, don’t feel especially worthy of anything special. I get oppression. I hate it, but I get it.

But what about empowerment? How do those who have fallen into the vast barren land of oppression become empowered? How do people internalize their worth and then use it as a driving force for change?

I feel like this concept has been translated to the cliché, “teach a man to fish,” which is great and lovely, but let’s be real, how do you teach worth to someone who, for so long, has been told, “you are nothing, you will never be good enough.”?

Our worth is frightening because when we internalize it, we realize we need to act. When we understand that we’re powerful individuals, we also understand our responsibility. We understand that for societal smoothness, each individual must understand their worth as well, each individuals must believe they are important and needed. Then, our life becomes a relentless fight to undo so many things that have been “normal” for so long, so many things that have resulted in the oppression of too many people.

Where do we start?

This is far too reduced too, but I think there’s only one place to start.

Love.

Each second of everyday, we can love. We can love the cashier at the grocery store, we can love the old woman driving too slow in front of us, we can love the teacher who tells us to “roll with the punches” as she dumps books outside our space, we can love the student who is defiant, we can love the breeze, and the chill, the colors, the smell of rain. In each of us, in all of our days, there are moments to love.

It seems simple.

For people to be empowered, they must feel loved. It’s not a matter of doing one good deed a day or preventing meltdowns when things don’t go our way. It’s a matter of genuinely loving as many seconds of as many moments as is humanly possible. 

Love is  empowering.