light side & dark side

Here’s a picture of the moon, taken through my telescope,
showing the light side and the dark side.

I’m still thinking about Brad Montague’s Hopepunk Newsletter, which I shared on the blog yesterday.

I love that he talked about the dark parts of the world and the terrible things that happen.

And that acknowledging this is part of true, scrappy, impactful hope.

We’re not advocating for toxic positivity or false or forced optimism. You don’t ever have to have good vibes only.

But there is a way to live our stories and communicate hope to others around us (and to ourselves!), by sharing and honoring that terrible things happen and beautiful things happen. We can carry on with courage and empowerment precisely because in the face of the terrible, we gain strength in remembering compassion, joy, light, human goodness, collaboration, creative solutions…

Sometimes you just have an unexpectedly bad day. Sometimes a season of life is really hard. Sometimes it seems like everything that could go wrong or be a challenge IS.

That’s okay! There’s nothing wrong with you or your life, you’re just a human being a human, like everybody else!

Keep going. Always.

(You can take a break and get some rest at any time — and then? Keep going!)