I have a lot of it. Part of it is the control freak in me—I want things to go my way; I want things to be done the way I would do them. And part of it is simply my inability to accept—people as they are, circumstances, life. Certainly I would be more at peace if I could consistently stop resisting and start accepting.
But then there’s Resistance with a capital “R.” Every generation seems to have some flavor of it, but coming of age in the 80s/90s, it was all about Fuck the Police, Raging Against the Machine, Fighting the Power, and Feeling Stupid and Contagious. And I still have that, engrained in me, but tempered with practicality and a certain docility that comes with age and responsibilities. Still, those things—racism, corporate greed, corrupt government, social and economic inequality, things that destroy the environment—are all worth Resisting, no matter what I want for myself or my family.
Many days though, I find myself struggling to identify and make choices to help change the world, while accepting things that are out of my control. There’s a lot of back-and-forth in my head. I want to have a comfortable life for my family but also be conscientious about how much we really need to make that happen. I want to make a good salary but what am I willing to give up to make that and who am I willing to work for to get that? I want to be thoughtful and considerate with what I put out in the world, but I also want to stir shit up, shed my light on what I find troubling and unacceptable.
It’s easy for me to get caught up in all the things I could do better. Sometimes I spend so much time and energy trying to parse out and do the “right” thing, that I end up not doing anything. Resistance is tricky because it works both ways—it’s a positive and a negative.
There are many things in my life that I resist that I need to just accept. There are many things in my life that I need to Resist because they are simply unacceptable. I need to continue to pray for the wisdom to know which is which, do what I can when I can, and keep working on letting the rest go.