"I think it's a mistake to look for hope anywhere except for one's self." -Arther Miller
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Jessica Craven is an political activist.
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"When Donald Trump got elected, I, like everybody, had a very powerful reaction of fear and grief, and… the background I come from is one that has grounded me in a idea that when something is wrong, I have to work to fix it. ... I started… trying to find little actions I could take to push back, and then I started sharing those with people. Just family members, and then I added a couple more people to that list, and then a few more, and suddenly I was sending out a daily action email five days a week called Chop wood, Carry water. "
"The reason it was called Chop wood, Carry water is because when I was going through a divorce, my Dad had been giving me a pep-talk, about how, you know, ‘this is going to take a long time to get through, but eventually you’ll get to the other side of it’ and I said ‘how do you get through such a long, painful experience?’ and he said ‘I just suggest you chop wood and carry water’ everyday you just wake up and you do whatever the next thing in front of you is too do. And just get through the day, and take the next right action, and one day you’ll wake up, and it’ll be over. And so that was why I called my email Chop wood, Carry water. Cause I felt that this was all we could do, in this situation, just do what we can."
"So, I came up with this motto: hope is an action. Hope is an action. We can’t wait to feel hopeful and then do something, we have to do something, and thereby give us hope. The more actions I took, the more hopeful I felt."
She put together something called 'Activism 101', which was a little teaching workshop that showed other people how to call their representatives and stand up for their party. It was so well received, that more and more people began asking her for it, until she was doing 50-60 in the three months leading up to the election. But this hope part- it's important. Because hope is something we all don't notice was missing until we have it with us. Hope is a fundamental building block of growth. It's not joy, it's better. It's the aspiration to joy. It's the idea that you can do something.
Hope is the first step to stepping up.
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I asked her about some off the times she felt the most down in her career. For someone who is so centered with hope, I wanted to see the other side of the spectrum. She gave me a list, but one thing she said caught my eye.
"Those were moments that were so personally painful to me that it was hard to be the leader, the person that people looked to."
I think that it is really important to recognize how hard it can be to be the leader sometimes. everyone wants you to be strong, untouchable, and it's not that simple. It's about how the hope persists through it all.
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I asked her about the most influential experiences she ever had in her career. again, she gave me a list, but one thing piqued my attention.
"Many of us have treated our democracy like a dinner party; that we’re invited too, and show up, without a gift, and just walk in and eat, drink, throw our coats everywhere, but the real work is in the kitchen. And now I’m helping."
Helping is the first step to fixing. Helping is standing up.
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Shocking positive and shocking negative:
Negative: Its been learning how much authoritarianism and dishonesty and greed our country will tolerate. And how, ultimately, half of the country is very selfish. Our democracy still needs a whole lot of work, and that’s been deeply disappointing.
Positive: How much power people actually have to make change. What I have learned from my experience is that people are still more powerful than money in this country. People still decide. We can’t buy elections, which means we are still a democracy. There are shockingly good people, everywhere, not on the news, not getting clicks, but they’re out there making a change. 97% of them were women or female identifying. It speaks to the power of female leaders. I am in awe of the people who actually made this happen, most of whom no one will ever know. The good is wider and larger. I have a lot of hope. There is no going back. We have to work for change, and there’s nothing better I could be doing then giving others hope.
Dishonesty, greed and authoritarianism is something that we brush under the rug. 'Our country is very selfish. That's deeply disappointing.' These are some words that everyone can take to heart, just in the way we act every day. Make our country a little better. It ties right in with the shocking positive. Just how much change we can make. We'll never get the covers of newspapers, or be headlined on TV, but how much difference can we make if we all tried?
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I think being an upstander means believing in the change that hope can make. It's working in the kitchen, if the world is a dinner party. It's her term, her message: Hope is an action. Because without hope, nothing goes anywhere. Nothing does anything. We stand still. And being an upstander is about not standing still anymore. Hope is the first step to helping, which is the first step to fixing. I invite you to remember her quote.
"Hope is an action."
Don't ever lose your action. We can all have the immense power of hope.
-
At the end of the day, I was really inspired in how she inspired hope in others. She connected to hope in such a strong way. I created a web of wires and lights to represent the hope that she inspired in so many people, everywhere. it was interconnected and (literally) glowed. I wanted to do her message justice.
-
Jessica Craven is an political activist.
-
"When Donald Trump got elected, I, like everybody, had a very powerful reaction of fear and grief, and… the background I come from is one that has grounded me in a idea that when something is wrong, I have to work to fix it. ... I started… trying to find little actions I could take to push back, and then I started sharing those with people. Just family members, and then I added a couple more people to that list, and then a few more, and suddenly I was sending out a daily action email five days a week called Chop wood, Carry water. "
"The reason it was called Chop wood, Carry water is because when I was going through a divorce, my Dad had been giving me a pep-talk, about how, you know, ‘this is going to take a long time to get through, but eventually you’ll get to the other side of it’ and I said ‘how do you get through such a long, painful experience?’ and he said ‘I just suggest you chop wood and carry water’ everyday you just wake up and you do whatever the next thing in front of you is too do. And just get through the day, and take the next right action, and one day you’ll wake up, and it’ll be over. And so that was why I called my email Chop wood, Carry water. Cause I felt that this was all we could do, in this situation, just do what we can."
"So, I came up with this motto: hope is an action. Hope is an action. We can’t wait to feel hopeful and then do something, we have to do something, and thereby give us hope. The more actions I took, the more hopeful I felt."
She put together something called 'Activism 101', which was a little teaching workshop that showed other people how to call their representatives and stand up for their party. It was so well received, that more and more people began asking her for it, until she was doing 50-60 in the three months leading up to the election. But this hope part- it's important. Because hope is something we all don't notice was missing until we have it with us. Hope is a fundamental building block of growth. It's not joy, it's better. It's the aspiration to joy. It's the idea that you can do something.
Hope is the first step to stepping up.
-
I asked her about some off the times she felt the most down in her career. For someone who is so centered with hope, I wanted to see the other side of the spectrum. She gave me a list, but one thing she said caught my eye.
"Those were moments that were so personally painful to me that it was hard to be the leader, the person that people looked to."
I think that it is really important to recognize how hard it can be to be the leader sometimes. everyone wants you to be strong, untouchable, and it's not that simple. It's about how the hope persists through it all.
-
I asked her about the most influential experiences she ever had in her career. again, she gave me a list, but one thing piqued my attention.
"Many of us have treated our democracy like a dinner party; that we’re invited too, and show up, without a gift, and just walk in and eat, drink, throw our coats everywhere, but the real work is in the kitchen. And now I’m helping."
Helping is the first step to fixing. Helping is standing up.
-
Shocking positive and shocking negative:
Negative: Its been learning how much authoritarianism and dishonesty and greed our country will tolerate. And how, ultimately, half of the country is very selfish. Our democracy still needs a whole lot of work, and that’s been deeply disappointing.
Positive: How much power people actually have to make change. What I have learned from my experience is that people are still more powerful than money in this country. People still decide. We can’t buy elections, which means we are still a democracy. There are shockingly good people, everywhere, not on the news, not getting clicks, but they’re out there making a change. 97% of them were women or female identifying. It speaks to the power of female leaders. I am in awe of the people who actually made this happen, most of whom no one will ever know. The good is wider and larger. I have a lot of hope. There is no going back. We have to work for change, and there’s nothing better I could be doing then giving others hope.
Dishonesty, greed and authoritarianism is something that we brush under the rug. 'Our country is very selfish. That's deeply disappointing.' These are some words that everyone can take to heart, just in the way we act every day. Make our country a little better. It ties right in with the shocking positive. Just how much change we can make. We'll never get the covers of newspapers, or be headlined on TV, but how much difference can we make if we all tried?
-
I think being an upstander means believing in the change that hope can make. It's working in the kitchen, if the world is a dinner party. It's her term, her message: Hope is an action. Because without hope, nothing goes anywhere. Nothing does anything. We stand still. And being an upstander is about not standing still anymore. Hope is the first step to helping, which is the first step to fixing. I invite you to remember her quote.
"Hope is an action."
Don't ever lose your action. We can all have the immense power of hope.
-
At the end of the day, I was really inspired in how she inspired hope in others. She connected to hope in such a strong way. I created a web of wires and lights to represent the hope that she inspired in so many people, everywhere. it was interconnected and (literally) glowed. I wanted to do her message justice.