Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief, do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now, you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
The Talmud
“This quote from the Talmud was shared with me by my uncle. The Talmud, for those who don’t know what that is, it’s the Oral Torah in Judaism. The way that this quote inspires me is that when I look at the state of affairs in the world, not just today, but in the past, and I have to say maybe even in the future, there’s a lot of problems in the world that are very daunting, that can seem enormous. These problems can send you into a spiral and a dark place. [We must] remind ourselves that we have the capacity and the agency to do the work now and to, at least, do what we can do today to push the envelope forward and to push humanity forward. We have the obligation to do that. We don’t need to feel like we need to completely repair and fix all the world’s problems, but merely to contribute to that effort.”
Shelly Tygielski author of Sit Down to Rise Up:
How Radical Self Care Can Change the World
