Discussion: how do you choose where to put your energy?

[tanaqui]

I'm sure many of us are feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of different issues being raised by the Minority President's administration: attacks on the media, Russian interference, threats to the ACA and abortion rights, immigration, First Amendment rights and Net Neutrality, dismantling public protections for our environment and our finances....

We've already had a post about how to approach your activism once you've decided which issues you want to work on. But, as sathari said in a comment to the last check-in post:

[T]here are so many things WRONG, which are the MOST wrong that I need to speak up about RIGHT NOW?

So this post is a place for people to suggest ways we can each figure out where we're going to put our energies when so much is wrong but we can't tackle all of it.

Comments

[kyrielle]

For what it's worth, I have two tiers of involvement:

1. My core issues. These are the things I put most of my energy and action toward.

What are they? They're the things I _know_ the most about, or the thing things I _feel_ the strongest about. I'm not saying other things are less important - there are too many important things to play that game - but I either have more knowledge (and thus more chance to have an effect) or more passion (and thus ditto, plus more energy), or both, here.

This list is limited in length to what I think I can maintain energy on and move forward - so if you're passionate about lots of things, you're going to have to work out which you are most passionate about. (And you may rotate them over time, either if you get burnt out or if something critical rises to the top - just, IMO, do that consciously.)

2. Everything else I care about. I will do "easy"/"quick" things related to these items, and I do think they're important, but I will let others with more knowledge, more passion, or both, carry the main effort here most or all of the time.

What "easy" and "quick" looks like varies from person to person. Figuring that out is also a self-calculus.

[kyrielle]

To clarify because I didn't say it - I don't think you pick what's most wrong. So many things are so very wrong that that's hard to do. You count on everything getting covered by someone, and you pick what's *wrong enough you think it should be addressed* that you have either a special passion about, or enough passion and extra knowledge that will make you more effective. (So my friend who works in renewables is all over the EPA issues, among others. Passion _and_ knowledge, the best combo.)

[tassosss]

This - we're playing zone defense and we have to trust the rest of the team is covering the other issues.

I think one of the hard things is letting go of the guilt about not supporting everything.