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Our most difficult task is to defeat social oppression, the caging of our spirit and the stifling of our potential by others. We mean the moments when someone exercises judgment, authority, or power against us in a burdensome, cruel, manipulative, or unjust manner.
Social oppression is at work when the ways of others diminish who we are or stop us from pursuing our own goals.
Those still trapped in the cage no longer see the freed as one of them.
Self-oppression is the condition of letting our own negative thoughts and actions restrict us.
Freedom requires responsibility to choose who we are above and beyond our immediate impulses, needs, and social pressures, so that we can genuinely express the type of person we want to be,
We are more alert to the sound of dogs barking than angels singing.
We mustn’t let the wicked stoke our doubts into the mighty flames of fear that consume our dreams. To these tyrants, we owe nothing.
A truly oppressive person cannot see beyond his or her own self-interest and so no relationship with them will ever be joyful or reciprocal.
So let us be diligent in avoiding these people, without ever deviating from our own path. We mustn’t wish them ill; it’s not worth the energy, and wicked people will get what they deserve as they destroy themselves.
Our success lies not in their destruction but in our own advancement, not in the astonishment on their faces as we surge past them but in the joy in our hearts at having prevailed despite them.
“What do I want for myself? What new goal would be meaningful to me? What am I excited about learning or giving? What great new adventure do I dream of? What grand pursuit or act of service will be satisfying to me and get me out of the bed each morning?”
