kelpforestdweller:

lenyberry:

kelpforestdweller:

it is time to remind you all that you don’t have to fight.

i know, i know, the Right Message is the opposite. a call to arms, to inspire you to resist, to support those brave incredible gen Z kids, to fight for our own lives and all the futures that come after us.

but sometimes you can’t.

or sometimes it’s too much. you don’t have to burn yourself up so we can bask in your light. you burn for you. conserve your heat. you’re going to need it.

remember why we fight. we fight for a kinder world and better lives. to live in misery, to die or destroy yourself in support of that? that is not better. that is not kind. the means don’t justify the ends.

remember that to fight, you must first survive.

you are more important than the struggle. yes, you are. the insistence that we must all push and sacrifice until it hurts is nothing but a replication of capitalism’s work-guilt complex, a puritan morality. we don’t need that in the new world we dream of. don’t bring it with us.

mary oliver says it best. “you do not have to be good. you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

give whatever you are able to give, if you want to. but remember it’s yours to give. no one is entitled to your energy, even for the most noble reasons. you are yours. your worth is inherent and requires no proof. you do not have to fight.

people are more important than money. people are also more important than the cause. some days the olam you can tikkun is your own, and some days not even that. you are still good.

Exhaustion is not a moral failing. 

Knowing what you need, and doing it, is a brave and noble act. 

Self-care is far more than “treat yo self”.

and “treat yo self” has value too, especially for those of us who are forever told we don’t deserve necessities, much less comforts.