1.4 Develop a new game plan
We’re living in a desperate time.
And what do we humans typically do when we feel threatened and scared…
We regress.
We double down on what we know.
Our country’s in a state of emergency, so there’s pressure on us activists, both from ourselves and from others, to put in longer hours, drive ourselves harder, and sacrifice more.
But sacrifice hasn’t worked. It hasn’t saved us. It’s part of the problem. It’s one of the reasons we’re in the trouble we’re in. We don’t need more activists sacrificing more…
We need more people doing their part.
I keep hearing a lot about how our priority work as activists should be to…
Resist.
Resist the evil that’s taking over our country and the world.
Of course, it’s better to resist than to submit. And resistance seems like the perfect match for a desperate, dangerous time.
But there’s something bigger we can do and that’s to…
Play offense.
I think we need to make playing offense our priority, because it mobilizes more of our inner resources than playing defense does.
And because it surprises our adversaries who are counting on us to be cowed and submissive.
And because it gives us a boost of energy when we do the opposite of what our adversaries want us to do.
And the one thing they most don’t want us to do is to…
Go deep.
Both with our activism and with our self-care.
Because as you’ll see in Chapter 5, our adversaries are nihilists. They’ve created a death cult. They practice destruction because that makes them feel more alive than anything else they know.
They don’t want us to claim the power that a deep understanding of the human operating system can give us.
They don’t want us to claim any powers at all.
There are so many things our adversaries hate. They hate all of us, for example. But what they really, really hate is to see us spirited instead of defeated. And not just spirited, but…
More full of fight and spirit than ever.
Let’s show them that the more they attack us…
The more spirited we get.
And the more fight they generate in us.
And the deeper we’re willing to go in order to power up our work.
This will put them in double bind. It’ll drive them crazy. They’ll want to attack us to make their lives easier, but that will make their lives harder instead.
Probably the most common question I get is…
What should I do?
But I think there’s a more important question…
Who do I choose to be?
Who do I choose to be personally? And who do I choose to be as an activist?
To answer the question of what you should do in y0ur daily life, that’s up to you. I think it’s actually a very personal question.
I love talking with activists about their talents, strengths, life experiences, ambitions, and moral core. I love helping them put together an activist life that’s true to who they most deeply are and rich in contribution to the larger effort.
This site is focused on the big picture, the operating system of your activism. I’m saying that some of the big picture things you can do are…
1. To put first things first, which means doing deep with self-care.
2. To know the game you’re in so you’re no longer mystified by the craziness of politics in our current era.
3. To step outside the game and get grounded in your own moral core.
4. To play against the game because it’s hurting us, it’s taking us down.
You can see these themes in the chapter titles.
And I really, really want people to understand…
How organizing is so much better for them than sacrificing. And better for the world.
To do these big-picture things is a lot. But then they become the foundation for discovering what actions you want to take day by day.
I believe going deep is so important that it deserves a site of its own, because…
It will give us powers that our adversaries can’t get to.
