What If We're Going To Be Okay?

week 2/52

I thought about this on Monday. Every day since it has sounded more insane. But since this space is for questions — not answers — let’s think about it. What if we’re going to be okay?

Not that what is happening in this country or the world is okay, because it clearly isn’t.  Not that there isn’t so much work to do, because there is. Not that we don’t need support from each other, and to take care of ourselves as best we can. We absolutely do.

But what if each of us don’t need an individual self-improvement plan for 2026? What if instead of turning focus and energy inward, trying to fix what we perceive as wrong with us, we put that energy into connecting with each other and tackling big challenges together?

"You'll be fine."

The first time I remember telling someone this it was almost by accident. I didn’t even intend it as a message for her personally. I wouldn't have done that. I would have thought it would sound dismissive. Yet she found it helpful.

“You’ll be fine,” was something someone told me the first time I found myself trying to process a real disaster — Hurricane Katrina. At the time I was a producer for NPR, and I’d spent nearly a week at the New Orleans Airport covering medical evacuations. Years later, I shared that story in a video storytelling workshop. (Plot twist for those of you who don’t already know this story, it ends up being personal, in a good way.) At the end of the workshop, we shared our video stories with the group. I included that line as part of the story, although I didn’t consider it to be the main point.

This workshop happened in June 2016. The Pulse nightclub shooting happened that same weekend, and that tragedy weighed heavily on the group. It was particularly devastating for a young college student who was part of the LGBTQ+ community. When she watched my story, that was the line that stayed with her. "You’ll be fine." She came to me afterwards in tears, and told me that was a line she needed to hear. At that moment of fear and pain, it helped her to hear that.

Imagining What's Next

I think this phrase can be helpful because it lets you see that the story continues beyond the moment that you are in. There is more in the future than you can see from your current vantage point. It isn’t denial of reality, but trust that people have worked through hard things before and you can too. It provides the opportunity to imagine what comes next. You'll be fine, even if right now you can't see how to get from here to there.

The power of imagination is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Last fall I watched this interview with john a powell with the Othering and Belonging Institute (OBI) at UC Berkeley. One thing that really stuck with me was how he talked about the importance of imagination. To create something new, you need to be able to imagine it first. So to create a future we want, we need to “protect and preserve our right — and our ability — to imagine.” 

When I went searching for those links just now, I found a new resource from OBI, Radical Imagination as a Tool for Belonging. Looks like they will be working on “Radical Imagination” research this year. I’m looking forward to it.

So maybe imagine what it could be like if we’re going to be okay. What could that look like? What could that feel like? How could we co-create that together?

And if you can imagine what you’ll be fine — what does that feel like?

Resilient. Supported by community. Protecting and preserving your capacity to feel — both the tremendous pain in the world right now, but also beauty and strength. And I hope you find ways to preserve and exercise your ability to imagine. We need that.