Author name: Peter Schulte

We do not choose what we dream. At best, we can choose which of our many dreams we pursue.

There is actually significant overlap between my shoulding and what I genuinely want to do. And yet, these aspirations can be so much more liberating, joyful, and easeful than I’ve made them in the past.

You are not a hero. I am not a hero. None of us is. We are not going to save the world on our own. We need to cultivate the ecosystem of change.

At best, you can have a clear, powerful purpose for this chapter of your life and career. And that chapter might end five years from now and it might end tomorrow.

We live our best lives when we actively choose the life we actually have, rather than yearning for some different, more “ideal” one.

So much of personal growth is working to make implicit memories explicit. We revisit past repressed traumas so they don’t act on us unconsciously anymore. But social change work is often the same.

So many of us who want to do good in the world come from a paradigm of excess positivity. We go, go, go. We keep saying “yes” even when we don’t have the time, energy, or genuine desire to do so. We make ourselves unwell trying to do good in the world.

It may not be as big and shiny as your friends and colleagues. It may not garner the acclaim as others. It may not be sexy. But you have something important to create and contribute. You are creative, in your own unique and much-needed way.

We are most able to make significant changes to our habits when we do so in relationship with others. Our new habits have a better chance of sticking when we allow others to witness, encourage, and celebrate us, and hold us accountable when we need it.

We often even perceive the world as getting worse even when it is actually demonstrably improving.