I’ve been thinking a lot about where we go from here.
Every weekday (and some weekends), I wake up early in the morning and, much to my husband’s chagrin, check the news. 2025 has begun unfolding aggressively, and because I work directly with business leaders, I feel the need to stay informed.
John advises me to focus on what I can control—to avoid spiraling into what ifs and worst-case scenarios. Sounds good, except worst-case scenarios are occurring at breakneck speed. It’s not in my head. It’s not hysteria. It’s not dramatics. It’s an unraveling unlike anything I’ve seen, and it takes concerted effort to shake the dull, sick feeling in my stomach that rises when I see that something will happen, tell people it will happen, they don’t listen or don’t care, and then it happens.
I know I’m not the only one feeling this way. I’m not the only one who struggles to conceptualize the length and width of the bridge between where we are and where we should be, but who knows we must traverse it. Even as I type, I’m acutely aware that this bridge—more rope than wood or steel—is our new shared experience. It is swinging in the whipping wind. At worst, we fall into the abyss. At best, there will be nausea.
But standing still or going back is not an option. The first steps away from our starting point are too brittle now, and the planks on which we now stand are showing signs of wear. The unraveling is real, but I’ve come here to remind you of something that I hope—deep inside—you already know:
We do not have to become it.
Like an unwanted gift, weapons of psychological war are being delivered to our proverbial doorsteps, and in rapid rotation. Each bigoted word and act—each manipulated law and malicious mandate and twisted narrative—pokes the sleeping bear in each of us. We gird ourselves to give the ire we’ve been given, and the blast radius blankets more ground than we intend. The larger the area, the more visible. The more visible, the easier to avoid.
We’ve come to reject the complexity of life and living, opting instead for rigid lines—purely defined categories of things and people. To make sure we don’t step on the lines, we back way up from the boundaries we set or that are set for us. Then, we watch—waiting impatiently for clear signs of potential risk or reward.
Is this why we’re capitulating in advance? Have we adopted the “blast radius” as a way of life? Have we learned to back way up from the line to keep ourselves safe from ridicule, or from responsibility, or both? I believe this makes our world smaller. It makes us smaller, too.
Love and truth are not mutually exclusive. Faith and action must coexist. I believe we are here on the cusp of our own undoing, in part, because we’ve relinquished our right to nuance. Nothing is that pure. We have each been right and wrong. We have each done things we’re proud of, and things we wish we could undo. No one is all righteous or all evil, and we must ask ourselves how believing this about ourselves or each other serves humanity. I’ve been humbled as of late. I’m releasing my need to feel important—to be smarter or better than anyone else. I am being liberated spiritually, and the process is inspiring me to do what I can, how I can. And to resist the temptation to try to be everything to everyone.
I don’t know what this means to you if anything, but it’s not a call to let those who intentionally wield harm off the hook or to sit idly by while they do. It is, however, a call for greater curiosity—an invitation to pause long enough to discover that which we think we already know.
We don’t have to embody the very hostility that grieves us.
This is the bravery I’m cultivating. This is the hard work I’m striving to do. This is the only war I personally find worth fighting right now.
I hope you will join me.
Tara Jaye Frank