ON DISCOURAGEMENT
Everybody is prone to getting discouraged at some point. Failure and disappointment are experiences in life, and I don’t think it matters who you are or what you do. I was reminded of this this past weekend when I went to and participated in a martial arts tournament. I agree with my Sensei that such events are not about beating anyone as much as the literal event seems to be. They are about proving something to ourselves, those who choose to participate.
Even then, though, things can still not go in our favor. It did not for me. Not only did I not place, but I also got a nice injury! Discouragement set in for a night as I returned home and nursed two wounds: the literal one and the one to my ego. I can cite many reasons I didn’t do well or as I had hoped. But they don’t really matter.
What matters is my plan moving forward. How I am going to dust myself off and get back at it.
I have someone close to me who talked about her days horse-riding. She told me she was thrown from her horse a few times during her training. She said it was scary as hell, and it also fucks with you on a deep level with the fear it leaves you. But she knew that the ONLY option for both her and the horse was for her to get right back up there as soon as possible. Doing anything else would leave an impression within herself of fear and make a mark on the animal’s psyche and ability to bond.
I think of her words often as I walk through my own life. I have been thinking of them even in this American political climate that vacillates between utter despair and the stubborn rise of new forms of evil. It is easy to get discouraged when you look at how broken America feels.
Honestly, My only antidote to this is my study of history. And I do not mean just what I was taught in school. Like most Americans, how American history is taught is pitiful and leaves out the most inspiring parts of who we have been. Let me give just three examples of what I mean:
First up is John Brown. He is a white man who is mentioned in most American history classes when students review American slavery and the Civil War. Most times, he is a footnote, but he is mentioned. He was a white man who not only rejected slavery but put his money where his mouth was and fought against it with his own life. He and Harriett Tubman were very close to collaborating on their attacks against the South, in fact. He is one of a few fascinating characters of history!
Second is Captain Newton (Newt) Knight. He is the man the movie “Free State of Jones” was inspired by. I won’t retell the story, but the short version is he turned against the Confederacy in the middle of the Civil War and led an insurrection that brought together enslaved, freedmen, and white Confederate soldiers, annexing portions of the South and weakening the Confederacy’s efforts to create a separate America. He also eventually married an African American woman, which was still pretty unheard of and controversial then (major understatement there!). He is a walking example of a white man, the most privileged of us, saying no to tyranny and doing something about it.
White women were no less forceful in their representation either. I would be remiss if I did not mention Lydia Marie Childs. She was the writer and songstress of the children’s song “Over the River and Through the Woods.” But she was far more. She was all at the same time an Abolitionist, Women’s Right Advocate (especially voting rights) and pro-Native American. She never stopped being outspoken about any of these causes. She continued even after the white American establishment blacklisted her in the publishing world, so her literary work never saw the light of day in a book.
The key to injustice, then and now, is for everyone to choose to pay the price for justice together. It is not enough for those oppressed to do it. The system will not change. It takes the consciousness shift that every single one of us is damaged by oppression if one of us is. Dr. King said this as a core teaching when he asserted, “All I'm saying is simply this: that all mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of identity. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
How do we combat discouragement? We start by learning our shared history. Learning it gives us something we seldom have, as Americans: the wisdom of context. Most of what we see in our country is part of a pattern of cycles that has gone on since America was founded as a country. These patterns are consistent, even if this current manifestation of it is unsettling and unpleasant to live through. I have given just three examples of people who stood against this tide. There are more. Our mission is to remember this, should we choose to accept it.
