I am so Grateful to be Engaged in the Work That I do.

Yet, choosing to engage in activism and abolition, full-time, takes an individual toll. For those of you who are activists and advocates, yourself, I am sure you can relate. Some days, the fire towards justice is enough to propel you forward; other days, you’re lucky to push yourself enough to get out of bed. As with all things, we must seek balance, if we desire longevity.

I Remind Myself of My Heroes.

The people who I look up to, or seek to ‘be like’, were and are activists, themselves. I often wonder, within the context of their own struggles and actions, how it must feel to be ostracized, criticized, and attacked. In reflecting, I remember, I am no stranger to attacks, myself.

Each day, and more-so recently, I find myself and other airborne aware community members accused of inflammatory, misguided, and/or reactionary responses to the current, ongoing, airborne pandemic. The general populace tends to lean towards comfort and communal agreement, over scientific fact and common sense.

Just as people who are airborne aware, pandemic deniers are not villains; they’re humans who are constantly grappling with their human impulses.

Being Airborne Aware or Covid-Cautious Does Not Mean That I Never Have The Impulse to ‘Return to Normal’…

I cannot count the number of times over the past 6 (nearly 7) years, where I have compromised my values, or questioned my positioning as an airborne aware person, giving into the peer pressures of society. However, as time has gone on, I have increasingly been able to solidify my values through information and fact gathering, contribute to my immediate community’s wellness by distributing resources and maintaining strict airborne illness precautions, and finding contentment in my orientation towards advocacy over conformity. Especially over the past year, I have found myself less and less pulled towards the curiosity of a life of conformity; knowingly perpetuating airborne harm within my community is not an option to me!

How Do We Move Forward When it Means Leaving so Many Behind?

I will be the first to admit; keeping an airborne aware lifestyle is lonely! So is keeping an anti-racist, abolitionist, liberation-centered life. Most people will find life too short, temptation too strong, and conformity too easy, to engage in true advocacy and abolition work. Even when confronted with facts and figures, many of our peers would rather lose our company than join our struggles. That is a difficult, and too common, reality for liberation-focused people to face. After all, it will take massive changes from massive amounts of people, for liberation to come to all of us.

It isn’t easy being the only one, or only one of a few, who voices concern over the concerning. The pull that you feel, to acknowledge the truth, and remain steadfast in the reinforcement of your values, isn’t coincidence. That voice is the product of many lifetimes of ancestral wisdom, speaking through you, pushing you towards a liberated future. History has shown us, time and time again, that greater society will always struggle to choose true liberation. That political centrism and false democracies, which seek to perpetuate harm and distract from abolition through covert operations and empty promises, will always thrive before full destruction of them occurs.

We must remind ourselves, on the days when we struggle to keep going, when the pressure to conform is all but too much, that change will come, but it requires our steadfastness to bring about.