“Death begets death begets death”
I finished reading Morning Star by Pierce Brown this week, and this quote has really been sticking with me, especially in light of recent events.
Sevro (and others) say this phrase a few times throughout the series, “Death begets death begets death.” And those words are painfully true and can be replaced with so many things. Cruelty begets cruelty begets cruelty.
But I believe it also works the other way.
Kindness begets kindness begets kindness. Hope begets hope begets hope. Empathy begets empathy begets empathy.
So that’s how I always choose to lead moving forward. With kindness. With hope. With empathy.
The world is a dark enough place that we don’t need to pile on in making it worse. What if we all piled on in making it better?
Progress begets progress begets progress.
It’s easy to get discouraged in the fight for progress. I worked in career services for ten years, working with thousands of students, and having hundreds of individual conversations about imposter syndrome. (Stick with me, I promise the tangent connects).
The best thing I found when helping people through this feeling was to look at where they started and where they are now. Often when we’re in the thick of things, we don’t see the little changes that happen every day. When we look at the bigger picture in a wide-view lens, that’s when we see all the progress that has been made.
In the US, the Declaration of Independence was almost 250 years ago. Slavery was abolished 160 years ago. Black and white people were finally able to get married 58 years ago. Gay marriage? 10 years. My godmothers were together for 42 years before they could legally marry.
The point is—change has happened. Change IS happening. But it takes time. It is not overnight. While it’s frustrating because we want change to happen now, we want things to be better now, only time and persistence will make change happen.
So, keep showing up. Keep being better. Doing better. Because those little pieces add up, and those days become years, and eventually, change does happen. But only if we keep trying. Only if we keep leading with kindness.