Facing life's reflections with fearlessness and kindness - to own our reality.

This started as a “New Year's reflections” post, but turned into an article inspired by the many kinds of reflections we face - and the many conversations that occurred in the last week of 2021.

To do meaningful work that aligns with who we are, and to have meaningful lives we need to know what matters to us. We also need to know what difference we can make in the world. And that, in turn, requires reflecting.

Reflecting is a strange activity though. Sometimes reflections are beautiful and we want to keep staring at them. However, enjoying our reflections is only good in moderation. As demonstrated by the story of Narcissus , falling in love with our own reflection and forgoing other people and all else can be deadly.

Sometimes, reflections of our reality scare, anger, or sadden us, so we avoid looking.

And sometimes, we throw stones at other people’s reflections and deny their reality because their reality disturbs us.

I’ve seen all of this in this last week.

I’ve enjoyed reflecting on all the amazing humans I’ve met. I've enjoyed reflecting on all the articles I wrote this last year. I was grateful for the lessons I learned in my career. But I did not want to reflect on those who plagiarized my work, or on being wage-gapped and title-gapped at various points of that career, or on blatant hate, or on having to work so much harder than many others because of the layers and layers of biases.?I've been tempted to deny the reality behind these reflections, ??????.

I talked to people who wanted to stop trying because the world – or the potential employers – rejected them too many times and they did not see any opportunities, anywhere. People who did not feel they had any control over their lives and careers at all.

I talked to a beautiful person struggling with the sense of guilt over their privileged background and wondering if they have a right to feel what they feel over their “first world problems” when others have it so much worse. My answer is yes, by the way - we feel what we feel, and trying to distort our reflections will not help anyone. What can help others is using what is available to us to improve the collective reality.

And then there were people who denied the reality of the experience behind others’ reflections.?The reality of bias and the existence of discrimination, the reality that some might have to work much harder than others, and it might still not be enough. The possibility that their reasonably pleasant reality is not the others’ reality - or the "ultimate" reality - scared them.?It was easier for them to believe that those reflecting on their experience with bias have in fact caused their own problems - and that discrimination does not exist. It was also hard for these people to be kind to others. Kindness can be scary when we are afraid that we ourselves may need kindness.

And then there was the fearless and wise Jacqueline Wales who inspired me to think about ownership and fearlessness.

Facing our reflections requires ownership of our reality. And ownership of our reality requires letting go of fear - and developing fearlessness.

Fearlessness to face our reality.

It is scary to take ownership of the painful facts of our lives. Ownership assumes responsibility, and responsibility can be scary. We can’t fail if don’t take responsibility.

It is scary to take ownership of the thought that life has been unfair to us. But acknowledging unfairness is not the same as allowing it to define our lives.

To reclaim ownership of our lives we still must do our best – not as victims, but as warriors. It’s not what we asked for, but it’s still up to us to do our best. We can acknowledge the reality of unfairness without falling into the victim mindset and giving power to people and systems who wrong us.

I can't fix the bias and cruelty I faced in the past. But I need ownership of my reality to do all I can to create a better future. To create opportunities for myself and to help create fairer systems for all.

Fearlessness to face that our reality may not be the others' reality.

When we are successful, it is also scary to take ownership of the thought that the world might not be as fair as we had imagined.

It is scary to acknowledge that life is unfair to others - because what if someday it be unfair to us?

But we can turn away in fear and try to keep our illusions by denying other people’s reality – or we can take responsibility for doing what we can to create more fairness and more equitable realities around us.?

Kindness, after all, also requires fearlessly facing the reality that we all need kindness, always. Others may desperately need it today. We may desperately need it tomorrow.

Bravely creating beautiful reflections.

To move forward, to see more beautiful reflections of tomorrow's reality, we need to take responsibility and ownership – and for that, we need to be fearless. Not always, not perfectly, because we are human – but we can be a little braver, a little more fearless every day.?

This fearlessness is not harsh. When we let go of our fears, we can also be kinder and gentler every day. To ourselves and to others.

Here's to creating beautiful reflections by building a better reality - with ownership, fearlessness, and kindness.

In the next year, I look forward to discussing how we can best align our work with our talents, values, and goals, and how we can grow in self-understanding.

Happy 2022!?