How To Do Enough

Especially When You Feel Like You Can't

There’s a type of comment I hear on a fairly regular basis, both online and in everyday life. I got such a comment under my last article about fighting back against ICE and the Trump administration generally, and I hope the commenter won’t mind if I use it as an example.

Here’s the part I want to talk about:

I'm mentally ill-type disabled. I'm one of the people whose lives haven't materially changed, in large part because I'm a shut-in whose social circle (a genuinely good one) exists almost exclusively online, and the state, horrible though it is, provides for my existence. I don't know what to do or what I can do. I can't imagine a future very well, but when I do, I don't know what I would tell anyone who asks what I did in this time, because the answer isn't really anything. I know you can't tell me what to do. I'm taking actions in my limited capacity, donating what I can to organizations I feel are doing genuine good and trying to pay actual attention to my fairly responsive local politics. It just hurts. And I don't imagine for a second that this pain is worse than that of the people who are actually being actively targeted right now (rather than just being passively in the crosshairs) or those who are actively getting involved in the fight to such a great degree. But it does hurt.

Every culture has a mythology: larger-than-life stories that tell us how the world works and what characteristics make a hero. Ours is a very young culture and our primary mythology is younger still: superhero stories.

There are some great things about our superhero mythology. The idea of powerful defenders making the world better through talent, determination, and force of will can be very inspirational, and the “with great power comes great responsibility” message is a good one. These stories can get pretty nuanced in their explorations of good and evil, state oppression, working outside the system, and so on. Cool.

But there are messages in these stories that can be harmful, and those lessons are in the air we breathe whether we’re fans of the genre or not. Only exceptional people can triumph over the forces of darkness. Fighting evildoers involves direct confrontation with bold and flashy moves, either by yourself or with a group of friends just as special as you are. Superman doesn’t need help, not really: he’s Superman. He can do it on his own. The traditional super hero dilemma isn’t whether they can. It’s whether they want to.

Our vision of the heroic is very individualistic, and that leads to a lot of guilt. Surely we should be able to fix things, right? If we could find the right words, the right actions, we could fix this: face down the administration and force them to stop. And if we can’t, we’re helpless. Useless. Not enough. You can know intellectually how silly this framing is and still feel it on a deep, personal level, and a lot of people do. It’s something I’ve struggled with. The people who write these comments are often struggling with it too.

Here’s the truth: it takes a lot of people to save the world, with a LOT of different skillsets and talents. There are so many jobs to do, and most of them aren’t very glamorous, and we’ve been taught to view a lot of them as small and inconsequential. But all those jobs need doing, and none of us can do all those jobs alone.

Let’s look at what the person who left that comment is doing right now:

• Donating what they can to organizations that are doing genuine good

• Paying attention to local politics

• Being part of a good social circle online

Organizations can’t run without donations, and a lot of them run on very small donations. Zohran Mamdani is not an organization, but it’s a good example regardless: the average donation to his campaign was $73.79, which means that a LOT of the donations he received were less than $73.79. Those people who gave a little are a big reason why he’s the Mayor of New York City: a thing that seemed impossible last year at this time.

Paying attention to local politics? Never been more important. State and local governments are best positioned to meaningfully resist the Trump administration; they have preexisting infrastructure and resources to draw on. A single person can have an outsized impact on local politics because not a lot of people are paying attention. Keeping pressure on your local repesentatives, talking to your friends about what’s going on, and/or voting in local elections is, bang for buck, one of the best things any of us can do right now.

The usefulness of that third thing—being part of a good social circle—is VASTLY undervalued. Americans are more isolated and lonely than they have ever been. It’s the kind of disconnection that makes people forget their fellow humans are human, and also leads to a desperate longing for human connection at all costs. Right-wing events offer a genuine sense of community that a lot of people are starving for. Weimar Germany was also a very lonely place—Hannah Arendt wrote about it extensively.

Not every isolated and lonely person becomes a fascist, of course, but the isolation remains a problem. Looking out at this world and feeling like you’re alone—like the world is going mad and there’s nobody to trust—saps sanity, leads to despair, and can literally kill you. People need people. We’re a social species, we evolved to hunt and gather in groups. Even the biggest introverts in the world need people, albeit in small doses.

I have no doubt that your social circle provides you with comfort, dear reader, and I am equally certain that you provide them with comfort right back. These things keep people going. Having friends we can trust and lean on helps all of us through tough times, and times are really, really tough right now.

I have a friend who periodically asserts that she’s not doing enough. Three years ago, this friend inaugurated something we call Soup Night. Once a week, someone makes soup at their place, and then whoever’s free comes over and eats the soup. People are encouraged to bring bread or a side dish, but no worries if they can’t. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Three years later, there are multiple soup nights in New York City and it’s the locus of an extended social network of people who enjoy each other’s company. It’s a spot of warmth in my own life that’s sustained me through some pretty dark times, and I know I’m not alone in that. In a million years, I could never have made Soup Night into the institution it’s become: I’m not a great cook, I have a lot of anxiety around organizing events and I don’t have the social network for it (or I didn’t, before Soup Night helped me gain one).

We all bring something to the table. A lot of people take their own skills for granted, especially when those skills are traditionally unpaid labor. Arranging a gathering and making a delicious soup out of nothing is as natural for my friend as it is anxiety-inducing for me; it doesn’t feel like a skill to her. But it absolutely is, and I sure am glad some people have it.

If you want to do more but don’t know what to do, a good place to start is by thinking about what you’re good at and what you enjoy doing. Make a list, if you’re so inclined. Include everything, even if it seems completely irrelevant to our current situation. How can those skills make the world around you brighter and better? How can you use them to build community or give people something they need, tangible or otherwise?

This is such a weird story, but: in late 2021 I had a full-on nervous breakdown. The brownstone directly across the street from me had a red door and, since it was Christmas, the occupant had hung a big wreath on it. I spent a lot of time staring out the window at that door. It was such a cheerful color of red, and such a lovely wreath, and it was this tiny bit of color when the entire world felt grey. You’ve done things that have impacted people in ways you’ll never know. Anything that makes the world more beautiful can be a message of hope for someone who might need it very badly.

The commenter has some limitations, as we all do—some far more limiting than others, but limits nonetheless. I suspect the commenter knows this already, nothing about their comment suggests they don’t, but for the record: that’s a capacity issue and not a moral failing. We give what we can and take what we need, day by day.

To everyone reading this (and also everyone not reading this): your worth is not tied to what you can contribute. You have inherent value. You are your own universe of thoughts and feelings that have never existed before and will never exist again. This movement we are fighting does not value human life that falls outside their sick definition of worthiness. Valuing our own lives at a time like this is a revolutionary act.

If all you can do right now is hold on for one more day: that’s The Work. You are doing the work. Thank you for doing the work.

It’s enough.