I am tired.

I feel saturated. Saturated with social media buzz about the injustice that’s happening in the world. The DAPL violating the rightful land of the people to whom this country belonged before we arrived. The jaded political diatribe that leaves all of us aching and wanting something better for this government, for all governments. The people of Aleppo burying their children. The insurmountable evils of female circumcision, of sex-trafficking, of worshipping a flag before loving our neighbor, of turning our backs on millions of displaced people.

All at once, it seems that we’re being called by every single social media outlet to take up arms against these injustices. In the past week, I’ve signed at least three petitions and shared countless posts about the DAPL and the political elections. I’ve written articles and had so many conversations about Clinton and Trump and voting on the election as Christians. I wanted to address the things happening at the moment, feeling somewhat responsible to use my tiny, thumb-sized platform for what I perceived to be good.

But I am so, so tired. If you’ve been taking up arms too and it feels futile, perhaps you are tired as well.

Maybe you see all these petitions and posts and protests rushing at you, one after the other, demanding a response. If you’re “awake,” you feel the responsibility to rise up to the challenge and participate in the resistance.

But the work is endless. And what good does it really do to actually share a post or sign a petition? How can be we be sure we are actually doing something to help, not just alleviating our uneasy consciences so we can sleep at night?

I remember when I first began to wake up to the reality of the world around me—the global world, not my microcosm of familiarity.

I was doing writing competitions in high school, and my literary diet had to be well-balanced and varied: a bit of fiction and biography, a good portion of news and journalism, a side of classics and business and a hearty serving of politics. It was 2011, and I was researching furiously and writing about the Arab Spring.

My junior year of high school I was able to travel to Greece and Spain, and I got to learn about the large displacement of immigrants coming in from Syria and Turkey and Morocco into these countries. I’d read a lot about the tattered economy and abysmal unemployment rates, but I saw the prejudice, the fear, and the despair surrounding the displacement of refugees up close, as close as the cab drivers I sat next to on the way to the airport in Athens, and the Halal vendors on the streets of Granada in Spain.

That feels like so long ago. Not four years, but four decades ago.

I feel old even though people older than I might regard me as a self-centered millennial with little experience and a big, opinionated head.

I feel like the newsfeeds have printed themselves all over my skin, leaving ages and ages of words that steal life and joy, that age me prematurely.

Even so, for a naturally pessimistic person I was doing quite well, until I wasn’t.

Slowly but surely, the learning that was supposed to turn me into a more compassionate human being left me cynical, hard-hearted. So keenly aware of my own prejudice that it leaves me speechless. There came a time when I began to wear my learning like a weapon to hurt others and prove them wrong, as opposed to living in such a counter-cultural manner that they felt compelled to ask.

There came a time when I argued with people I grew to consider religious bigots about the importance of loving people who are different from you, while my words towards them were hateful and angry. There came a time when I wore my newly-acquired learning like a royal seal, and it became the currency of privilege by which I assessed the worth of others. The more they thought like me, the more aware of social oppression and injustice they were, the worthier they were as human beings.

So, when the suddenly-bursting can of worms that the 2016 elections uncovered finally happened, I was not prepared to face it graciously. It seemed as though racist people were finally given license and approval to be even more racist. Those of us who hope to be on the side of justice and truth went up in arms. And in this process in which people revealed their true selves as privileged bigots, I think many of us willing to believe the that we were different revealed our true selves too.

What I saw in myself truly grieved me. I had been proud of my identity as a woman of color, a feminist, an immigrant, a non-denominational, irreligious Jesus follower. But I ended up being a person who values being right more than loving others.

In the wake of this revelation, which still grieves me every day, the words I have written, here at Odyssey and elsewhere, became cloying. The feeling of restlessness grew week by week, because I felt like the discordance between my thoughts and actions made my words meaningless. Even though I try to remain honest in what I believe, it's still hard to overcome the discordance in the daily drudgery of routine.

So, yes, I am tired of not being enough in my own life, in my practicing of the things I write about. I am tired of falling short of the work that needs to be done. In the past I have been so loud, voicing so many opinions, telling people that their stories don't matter because of their privilege, and in the process I've alienated people who cared about me instead of joining forces with them for a work of peace that we were all called to do in one way or another.

And so, this week, this very week of November 8th, when the presidential election outcome reveals itself and the world keeps spinning like it always has, I want to quiet down and simply listen. Listen to what is happening, listen to what will happen next. Because regardless of what happens, we all still have choices of who we want to be and how we want these changes to affect us in the coming years.

Listening is often not a very valued action. Having a platform from which we can spew our words is often more desirable than sitting still and listening. I used to think that, as a quiet, introverted person, I would have to find my strength in becoming louder. Now I see that my strength comes not only from speaking out at the right time and place, but in continuing to listen consistently, carefully, always.

Maybe you’re tired too, of fighting battles inside and outside of you. Maybe you also don’t feel like you’re doing enough, and the weight of the brokenness of the world crushes you. Maybe it doesn’t, because the anxieties of your life are too much and you can’t think about the broken cease-fires and broken governments right now because simply getting out of bed each morning feels like a losing battle.

I just want to share with you what the words I have read over and over, from Jamie Tworkowski, founder of To Write Love On Her Arms: "if you are tired, it’s okay to stop." It’s okay to step back and give yourself the freedom to be honest. It’s healthy to be honest, to stop living life on the surface, burying yourself under the layers that a fast-paced life piles on top of us.

Life doesn’t stop for us. But as human beings who have worth, I think it’s okay to stop in the middle of the forceful currents of time and demand the breaths that we need to take, the healing that we need to do.

I need to do a lot of healing myself. The stuff I learned, while empowering, challenging, and eye-opening, has left me discouraged and a bit aimless. I’m at a crossroads where I need to make a lot of decisions about my life in particular, and about what I will believe in general, because what you believe, whether you like it or not, shapes how you live.

And thus, I crave real answers. A deep discussion, a genuine conversation. No more empty platitudes. No more cookie-cutter responses from well-meaning people automatically spouting feel-good Bible verses taken out of context; no more clichés that are nothing but lazy apathy in disguise.

I hope this wasn't a prescriptive article. (I also hope I didn't go too much off the deep end here, either). I simply wanted these words to be a pause. A much-needed breath, a pause before the storm.

May we all find the answers we're looking for.

"Hurry wounds a questioning soul." - Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist

“If you feel too much, there’s still a place for you here. If you feel too much, don’t go. It this world is too painful, stop and rest. It’s okay to stop and rest. If you need a break, it’s okay to say you need a break.This life –it’s not a contest, not a race, not a performance, not a thing that you win. It’s okay to slow down. You are here for more than grades, more than a job, more than a promotion, more than keeping up, more than getting by.This life is not about status or opinion or appearance. You don’t have to fake it. You do not have to fake it. Other people feel this way too. If your heart is broken, it’s okay to say your heart is broken. If you feel stuck, it’s okay to say you feel stuck. If you can’t let go, it’s okay to say you can’t let go.You are not alone in these places.” - Jamie Tworkowski, If You Feel Too Much