Airing Our Grievances vs Settling Our Grievances
How our "hot air" IMBALANCE prevents us from being taken seriously
Voiceover sample for free subscribers
Growing up I remember hearing the saying, Talk is cheap but it takes money to buy land. My own little quip has become, Everyone can talk a good game, but not everyone can play a good game. And I’m sure we are all familiar with Put up or Shut up! One of my lounge-around-the-house hoodies actually says, Show up or Shut up!
There are so many sayings that pretty much get at this same idea because after a while all of the talking becomes a nuisance. We all seem to inherently want all the talk to be balanced with action. If the talk is not balanced with action, we become annoyed, tune out and begin to take people and their causes less seriously. One thing I know for sure is when people are being serious the last thing they want is to NOT be taken seriously. And certain matters MUST be taken seriously. To not take them seriously is to our peril. Yet we keep making the same mistake. We remain out of balance blowing smoke/hot air and we continue to suffer as a result.
Personally I’ve become annoyed with a number of things. I’m tired of everyone blowing smoke with their “entitled” opinions. I’m tired of people (both black and non-black) blowing smoke thinking they know what’s best for the black community. I’m tired of smooth-talking people blowing smoke because they think they can talk their way out of everything. I’m tired of people blowing smoke for attention and entertainment. I’m tired of the codependency of blowing smoke because we feel purposeless and don’t know who we are apart from it.
I’m ready for real change. I’m tired of us talking in circles. I’m tired of serious matters not being taking seriously. I’m tired of us thinking we are fighting when in fact we are flailing. This is what comes to mind when I observe all the hot air going back and forth.
From politics to civil rights to personal matters, we are upset but not truly prepared to fight and/or we can’t land the punches we throw at the problem. All our opposition has to do is wait for us to fatigue ourselves and deliver a knock out punch that sets us back even further. If all of this sounds like an abstraction to you, hang in there with me as I have several examples that illustrate entitled opinions, flailing activism, and grievance codependency. Then I will conclude this essay with some observations on settling grievances successfully.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Harmonious Balance to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.