This title is directed at myself as much as anyone else. But really, everyone, let’s collectively STOP. There are way too many situations where we are just all phoning it in and that has to end at some point. Show up, for real. Be real. Take a stand. Believe in something. Make noise. Raise a ruckus. Live deeply and speak from your soul. The world can no longer suffer empty promises and platitudes. It’s time to put up or shut up.

In the last 10 months, the world has lost Elijah Cummings and John Lewis, both from the US House of Representatives. 74 years of public service between the two men and two lifetimes of civic engagement and civil rights leadership. I am a white woman, but I can recognize the work of these men and the distance we still have to go for racial equality in America. I think about how they used the time in their lives and I wonder, what the heck am I doing with mine?

I started this blog because I had something to say. The pandemic lock down had begun and I had time on my hands. And I wanted to explain some shit to people, to begin to document some simple concepts in ways I hadn’t heard them before, hopefully to help others. My mind works in abstracts, so when I observe a pattern, I want to be able to explain how things fit together. BUT, I’m doing a piss-poor job at A: keeping up with regular content and B: writing anything that is even remotely better than shit I wrote in high school at 2am on a Dr Pepper fueled caffeine buzz. And it’s not because I don’t want to. It’s because deep down, I don’t really believe my contribution is valuable. And therefore, I put little to no effort and expect it to just happen, creating a self- fulfilling prophesy.

I can do better. I would like to do better. I would like to live my life with purpose as those great civil rights leaders did. I will never have 1% of the impact on the country as they did, but any impact would be something. But I have to do better. Focus. Edit. Write from the heart and revise with the head. In short, stop half-assing it.