Recent events both in my country and abroad, both of wide importance and personal importance, have made the past week or so difficult. Bad news and bad events have no master or timing, they do not consider giving us a break, they come and go as they please no matter how bad the situation already is.
I fully understand why many people choose to withdraw from daily news or shut it out altogether or even just avoid social media completely. Hearing the bad news can be disheartening, and it comes at us even when there is work to be done or words to be written or deadlines to be met. We have no choice but to soldier on, to slog through the bad news and do our work anyway. It is the world we live in.
To withdraw from this world and hide away from all the darkness is understandable, if only for a short time. But all the bad things in the world won’t go away simply because we refuse to see them. At some point we have to come back to it and voice our objections and engage in discussion and reach out to other people and ask what we can do to help turn the tide. It is not a burden we simply leave other people to bear, it is on our shoulders collectively to try to make the world a better place, if only a little bit at a time, if only by saying “I don’t think these things are good, and here’s why”
The world doesn’t stop for us because it makes us sad. The work that needs to be still needs to be done. We move forward, one step at a time.
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