My best friend recently had a baby. And when I met him, I was in awe of witnessing this tiny, beautiful being enter into our lives. I also had this realization that he wasn’t just entering our lives, was entering the world — this crazy world that, especially now, feels so incredibly challenging. I spend a time in my work talking to people about who we are, who we must be and what our healing looks like.
So the first time I held him, had my pep talk ready. You know, I wanted him to know that the way we find our strength is through our challenges. I wanted him to know that we can all do something big when we start small. I wanted him to know that each of us is more resilient than we could ever imagine. So here I am holding little Thelonious. I look at him, and it hits me: he’s a baby.
(Laughter)
He’s not going to understand a single word say to him. So instead, I thought it would probably be a idea if I went home and wrote. So, this is for grownups, but it’s also for Thelonious, when he’s old enough to read it:
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The will say to you, “Be a better person.” Do not be afraid to say, “Yes.” Start by being a better listener. Start by being better at walking down the street. See people. Say, “Hello.” Ask how they are doing and listen to what they say. Start by being a better friend, a better parent, a better child to your parents; a better sibling, a better lover, a better partner. Start by being a better neighbor. Meet someone you do not know, and get to know them.
The world will say to you, “What are you going to do?” Do not be afraid to say, “I know I can’t do everything, but I can do something.” Walk into more rooms saying, “I’m here to help.” Become intimate with generosity. Give what you can give, and do what you can do. Give dollars, give cents, give your time, give your love, your heart, give your spirit.
The world will say to you, “We need peace.” Find your peace within, hold it sacred, bring it with you everywhere go. Peace cannot be shared or created with others if we cannot first generate it within.
The world will say to you, “They are the enemy.” Love enough to know that just because disagrees with you, it does not make them your enemy. You may not win an argument, you may not change a mind, but if you choose to, you can always achieve the triumph of radical empathy — an understanding of the heart.
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The world say to you, “We need justice.” Investigate. Find truth beyond the stories you are told. Find truth beyond the way things seem. Ask, “Why?” Ask, “Is this fair?” Ask, “How did we get here?” Do this with compassion. Do this with forgiveness. Learn to forgive others. Start by truly learning how to forgive yourself. We are all more than our mistakes. We are all more than who we were yesterday. We all deserving of our dignity. See yourself in others. Recognize that your justice is my justice, and mine yours. There can be no liberation for one of us if the other is not free.
(Applause)
The world say to you, “I am violent.” Respond by saying, “I am not. Not with my words not with my actions.”
The world will say to you, “We need to heal the planet.” Start saying, “No, thank you. I don’t need a plastic bag.” Recycle, reuse. Start by picking up one piece of trash on your block.
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The world will say to you, “There are too many problems.” not be afraid to be a part of the solutions. Start by discussing the issues. We cannot overcome what we ignore. The more we talk about things, the more see that the issues are connected because we are connected.
The world will say to you, “We need to end racism.” Start by healing it in your own family.
The world will say to you, “How do we speak to bias and bigotry?” Start by having the first conversation at your own table.
The world will say to you, “There is so much hate.” Devote yourself to love. Love yourself so much that you can love others without barriers and without judgment. When the world asks us big questions that require big answers, we have two options. One: to feel so overwhelmed or unqualified, we do nothing. Two: to start with one small act and qualify ourselves. I am the director of national security, and so are you. Maybe no one appointed us and there were no senate confirmations, but we can secure a nation. When you help just one person to be more secure, a nation is more secure. With just one outstretched hand that says, “Are you OK? I am here for you,” we can transform insecurity security.
We find ourselves saying to the world, “What should I do?” “What should we do?” The better question might be: “How am I showing up?” I ask the world for peace, but do I show up with peace when I my family and friends? I ask the world to end hatred, but do I show up with love not only for those I know, but those I don’t know? Do I show up with love for those whose ideas conflict with my own? I ask the world to end suffering, but do I show up for those who are suffering my street corner? We say to the world, “Please change; we need change.” But do we show up to change our own lives? How do we show up to change the lives of the people in communities?
James Baldwin said, “Everything now, we must assume is in own hands; we have no right to assume otherwise.” This has always been true.
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No one nominated Harriet Tubman to her purpose, to her mission, to her courage. She did not say, “I’m not a congressman or the president of the United States, so how could I possibly participate in the fight to abolish a system as big as slavery?” She instead spent 10 years making 19 trips, freeing 300 people, one of people at a time. Think about the children of those 300 people, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren and beyond. Our righteous acts create immeasurable ripples in the endless river of justice.
Whether it’s Hurricane Katrina, Harvey, Irma or Maria, people did not say, “There is so much damage. What should I do?” They got to work on what they could do. Those with boats got in their boats and started loading every woman, man and child they came across. Near and far, people gave their dollars, they gave their cents, they gave their hearts, they gave their spirit.
We spend so much time thinking don’t have the power to change the world. We forget that the power to change someone’s life is always in our hands. Change-making does not belong to one group of people; it belongs to all of us. You don’t to wait on anyone to tell you that you are in this. Begin. Start by doing what you can with what you’ve got, where you are and in own way.
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We don’t have to be heroes, wear a uniform, call ourselves activists or get elected to participate. We just have to be brave enough to care.
Now, around the time was born, I went to the birthday party of a man named Gene Moretti. It was his 100th birthday, which means he lived in the United States through the Depression, World War II, the struggle for workers’ rights, the achievement a woman’s right to vote, the Civil Rights Movement, a man on the moon, the Vietnam War the election of the first black president. I sat with him, and I said, “Gene, you have lived America for 100 years. Do you have any advice during these current times?” He smiled and said to me simply, “Yes. Be good to as many people as possible.” And as he danced with my mother, is, by the way, half his age, in a room full of generations of his family and hundreds of people, many of whom traveled thousands of miles to be there to celebrate him, I realized that he had not just given me advice, had given me the first step that every single one of us is capable of making if we want to create a real, wholehearted impact on the world us, right now.
“Be good to as many people as possible.”
Thank you.
(Applause)
Footnotes
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“See people. Say, ‘Hello.’ Ask how they are doing and listen to what they say.”
Eric D. Wesselmann, a psychology professor at Purdue University, explains: “Because social connections are fundamental to survival, researchers argue that humans evolved systems to detect the slightest cues of inclusion exclusion. For example, simple eye contact is sufficient to convey inclusion. In contrast, withholding eye contact can signal exclusion. … Even though one person looks in the general direction of another, no eye contact is made, and the latter feels invisible. Read more here.
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“Become intimate with generosity. Give you can give and do what you can do. Give dollars, give cents, give your time, give your love, give your heart, give your spirit.”
In a research study, participants were given $100 to spend on themselves or others. Those who had agreed to spend money other people tended to make more generous decisions throughout the experiment, compared to those had agreed to spend on themselves. They also had more interaction between the of the brain associated with altruism and happiness, and they reported higher levels of happiness the experiment was over. Read more here.
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“Learn forgive others. Start by truly learning how to forgive yourself.”
“Risk and resilience: Being compassionate to oneself is associated with emotional resilience and psychological well-being,” Ricks Warren, Elke Smeets, Kristin Neff, Current Psychiatry, December 2016
“Self-Compassion and Wellbeing,” Kristin Neff, Christopher Germer, Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science
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“Start by saying, ‘No, thank you. I don’t need a plastic bag.’
Plastic bag consumption facts, ConservingNow
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“When you help just one person to be more secure, a nation is more secure.”
A study in Detroit, Michigan shows if people helped out during a stressful event, they had a mortality rate. Read more here.
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“James Baldwin said, ‘Everything now, we must assume is in our own hands; we have no right to assume otherwise.”
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin, 1963
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“Start by the first conversation at your own kitchen table.”
A single, 10-minute conversation encouraging actively taking the perspective of others can markedly reduce prejudice for at least three months. A study illustrates this potential with a door-to-door canvassing intervention in South Florida targeting prejudice. Read more here