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People, friends, and family – this is the moment. Tuath. Are you doing the work that is needed?
It doesn’t matter what change you’re worried about, what news cycle you’re following, or which crisis feels most urgent. The truth is, there are only three positions available right now.
No matter who you are. No matter what your background is. You’re in one of them. You’re choosing it every day, with your voice, your money, your silence, your energy.
So let’s break it down clearly. No fluff. No spiritual bypassing. Just the truth.
1. You Are Actively Supporting Harm
You are campaigning for them. Voting for them. Sharing their ideology. Quoting them in arguments. Buying their products. Following and reposting them on socials. Recommending them to others. Enabling them.
You are actively facilitating and contributing to oppressive systems such as:
- Colonialism
- Imperialism
- Eco-fascism
- Capitalism
- Patriarchy
- Racism
- Misogyny
- Xenophobia
- Transphobia
- Fascism
Etcetera. (Yes – we could go on.)
You might not realise it. Or maybe you do, and you just think your individual choices don’t matter. But they do.
The harm you’re helping to normalise is real. The people being hurt are real. You are standing in direct alignment with ideologies and structures that are destroying lives and ecosystems alike. You’re doing the work – THEIR work.
Let’s be clear: this is the wrong side of history.
2. You Are Actively Doing the Work
This means more than just having good intentions.
You are thinking and speaking and doing. Specifically, you are doing the work with any or all of the following, along with whatever else comes up as things change so fast…
- Learning and thinking critically
- Broadening your awareness
- Listening to lived experiences that aren’t your own
- Voting and speaking out – not just when it affects you, but when it matters
- Supporting grassroots organisations with time, money, or visibility
- Building and contributing to healthy community
- Cultivating and integrating sovereignty in practical ways
- Starting mutual aid networks
- Creating content that helps and informs
- Holding space and offering real support to those on the front lines
- Writing letters, emails, making calls
- Staying informed about both sides of any issue
- Doing academic research, following multiple proven experts in areas you care about
- Examining your own biases
- Going to therapy
- Doing and teaching regulation techniques for mind and body
- Having difficult conversations with those you care about who are being misled
- Making your home, work, and social spaces unsafe for oppression to exist or grow.
You’re shutting down Transphobic, Queerphobic, Racist, Misogynistic “jokes” and comments. You’re not pretending this is fine. You’re not pretending “it’s just banter.”
Because in any group of 10 men, statistically, one of them isn’t joking when they make those rape jokes. When they talk about underage girls. When they comment on violence. When they dismiss others’ pain.
This work isn’t easy. It’s not always comfortable. But you are doing it. This is what the world needs. Not perfection. Not performance. But consistent, messy, real engagement.
3. You Are Doing Nothing
Maybe you’re overwhelmed. The headlines are relentless. The conversations feel fraught. It all seems too big.
Maybe you think others are overreacting. You’ve said as much, shutting people down or ignoring them. Maybe you’ve dismissed the panic – “It’s not that bad,” you tell yourself.
Maybe things just feel… a bit more expensive. A bit more chaotic. But nothing that touches you directly.
You’re still relatively comfortable. So you just want to live in “peace.” Doing the work means nothing to you, unless it’s work your boss is paying you for.
You just want to:
- Watch your shows
- Have a few drinks
- Talk about football or fantasy smut or reality TV
- Take your walks
- Work your 9–5
- Rest on the weekends.
And all of that’s fine – in theory. But when you retreat into those comforts and stay there, while others are screaming for help, you’re not choosing peace. You’re choosing complicity.
Because doing nothing is a choice.
And that choice supports the systems that are actively causing the harm.
You are standing by. Letting it happen. Not doing the work.
History Is Watching
Let’s not be subtle, here, we don’t have the time left on the clock.
There are so many examples we could use to illustrate this moment. But let’s go with the one people understand best:
Nazi Germany.
There were three positions there too.
- Those who were the Nazis.
- Those who fought the Nazis.
- Those who stood by and did nothing – and let it happen.
Only one of those groups helped stop the Nazis.
The other two were the Nazis.
That’s not hyperbole. That’s history.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
– often attributed to the Irish philosopher Edmund Burke (it’s actually a paraphrase of his work, but the message stands).
So.
Comment 1, 2, or 3, for where you’re at right now on doing the work.
Which position are you choosing – today, and every day?
Not choosing? That’s choosing Position 3, while the world is burning. People are dying.
Choose better.
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