At the end of each year, I pick a word or phrase to guide the following year. Sometimes it’s really impactful, and other times I barely remember it, and sometimes I even miss the mark. Last year’s was one I was particularly nervous about.
My phrase for 2025 will be something I’ve already begun working on – empathy without responsibility. I was exhausting myself by always wondering if I was focused on the right thing, always doing triage on what might be a better use of my time. Instead, I’m going to focus on what is in front of me and what I have some influence over. I can send money to Translifeline and if a trans kid from Florida shows up on my porch I can house them. But I cannot drop everything in my life to move to Florida to fight the good fight. What I am already doing matters, and I should focus on it.
This is something I had even begun thinking about months before the end of 2024, and realized I needed to pin my year to it. One of the conversations I have had with Reed is about how having a drink helps me give myself permission to disengage from the world. “I am now off duty” I am broadcasting by imbibing. And as someone who is nearly always “on,” that is a useful tool. However, learning to turn down if not off is a skill worth acquiring, and so I set out for the year.
I’m working two approaches: classifying and trusting.
For classifying, I’m determining if something is actually classed into a category that I do have responsibility for. Ends up this is a much smaller set than I initially felt it was. I’m still responsible for a lot — my role in the household, being a parent to my child, an organizer for my neighborhood, the steward of some extra cash to give to others, etc. I am NOT the responsible party for getting an unhoused neighbor on their feet, but I AM responsible for being kind to them and being sure they know about nearby resources and maybe helping them get to those resources. I can also be responsible for making sure that nearby resource knows I have their back, volunteering occasionally, and donating when I have extra. I am not responsible for how Locke does in the classroom, but I am responsible for guiding his behavior when he is at home, and making it clear to the school that I have their back while also having his. Etc.
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For trusting, that means I am also trusting the other people in my network and neighborhood to do what they are responsible for. I stay out of their way except for when I have something to offer that might help. I build unlikely friendships with people who have very little practical overlap with me but with whom I am ideologically aligned. I deepen friendships with people similar to me but doing their things further afield so we can align with and learn from each other.
But! I am still looking for tools to deepen this practice. A very dear, very long-time friend of mine is also an exceptional facilitator and is doing a free session on just this thing on Tuesday, November 25th from 9:30a-12 PT. You could come learn with me if you struggle with similar things. It would be great to see your faces there.
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