Choose Your Hard
We’ve made it to nine years.
To everyone who has participated, thank you.
When we fuel the mission to inspire American unity with funding and create inspiration for American unity, we become leaders for American unity.
Leadership is hard.
Avoiding leadership is hard.
We get to choose.
I first heard this phrasing from Nick Bare—and I love it because we have to choose every day.
Start where we are
Because of the $1,050 we raised earlier this year (THANK YOU!), I'm re-reading the journal entries in our archive to create one of our leader training assets.
One morning I started with the journal entry “Hope Rises,” written by a then-current Legislative Correspondent in Congress. And it highlights why it's so critical that we start where we are to move the mission to inspire American unity forward, with the goal of biannual publication and 20% of the funds donated per copy going to partner organizations.
I wanted to share that journal entry with you again—it has me a little dumbstruck this morning about why we should keep moving forward. I've pasted it below, or you can find it on the website.
I know we have all faced significant challenges in life over the last nine years—and yet, when we choose our hard, when we choose to build endurance, we can make our country more just and free.
The goal of raising $2,000 in monthly contributions, and after that $1m over five years to pull off biannual publication, matters because the stakeholders that we serve, like this writer and all Americans, deserve the best service we can give them—and based on firsthand experience, I know our work to write alongside professionals in American politics, to compile their work into illustrated journals, and to fund partner organizations is a critical contribution to American self-governance.
Giving as a co-creator
If you're a fan of what we've created so far with our writer community and Volume One, your support as a Liberatus Advocate or as a member of the Founders' Circle will move you from fan to co-creator. As such, I'd love to hear from you how I can better serve you—or co-create with you. You can write to me using the form below.
When you sign up as a Liberatus Advocate, you'll get your name printed in Volume Two, I'll send you private monthly video updates, and you'll be on the invite list for the Annual Ultramarathon & Trailfest—where we celebrate the mission, our team, and our donors. You can run or hang out at any distance you choose. Most importantly, your donations will be electrolytes for our marathon, gas for the car—post traumatic brain injury and Volume One, it will get the creative cycle flowing again.
Thank you for being part of the mission, and I look forward to creating more with you in the years ahead.
Build endurance,
Caleb
Hope Rises
By Legislative Correspondent 1, February 22, 2016
I willingly admit that most of my life I have been a starry-eyed optimist. I’ve wanted to work in Congress since I was 14, because I wanted to “make a difference.” I think what’s hardest for me is realizing that I don’t see that in myself anymore. That passionate fire in my belly is gone, and to be honest it happened pretty quickly when I took my job in Congress.
I’ve written previously about Congress feeling like a massive machine that got stuck on autopilot, and I think that is the root of most of my disillusionment. The majority of our work days are not focused on governing well and finding solutions to big problems. Instead, they are centered on playing the game in a way that keeps Members in office and keeps parties and interest groups happy.
When saying this, my thoughts go to November when the Paris attacks happened. Immediately there was a huge Conservative backlash regarding allowing refugees into America. People were scared, and instead of our elected officials speaking peace into a situation while working to seek solutions, too many of them used it as a rhetorical opportunity to slam the President and create unrealistic legislation that will never pass but will make a great talking point in the meantime.
I’ve seen these frustrations manifest themselves when I try to respond to constituents, whether in a meeting or over the phone. The fact is I no longer believe in what I’m telling them. I don’t believe that we are going to fix big problems, unite America, or even pass all of the Appropriations Bills. I guess it kind of feels like I’m living a double life. Part of that life is the reality within my office of knowing how life actually operates on Capitol Hill and choosing to play the game. The other half is the face we put on for the rest of the nation, acting like we are deeply convicted people working for the betterment of America.
I think the hope I’m clinging to right now is that many people on Capitol Hill probably did start out like me, deeply convicted and hoping to better the world. However, only a serious awakening is going to change the disillusioned robots our broken system has created.
I say all of this while writing for an organization that is willing to shout from the rooftops that Congress is broken and is deeply in need of restoration. That in itself offers hope that this awakening maybe isn’t too far away. I think it will begin when people see that the status quo does not have to define how we operate, but ultimately, it will happen when people are willing to stand up and put a stop to the machine. Politics defined by truth and beauty still sounds like a far-fetched reality, but inch by inch, word by word, we’re moving, and we won’t stop.
Weekly Action Point:
Take a look at the vision overview as we look to produce a biannual publication. Take time to pray in nature about your vocation or calling. Then, you can set up a monthly recurring donation as a Liberatus Advocate at the tab below. You can also write Volume Two with us by responding to a one-question interview. We will compile responses to the question about the future you imagine into a new vision asset to guide the stories that we tell, the research that we include, and the partner organizations that we fund.
Mission: Inspire American Unity
Liberatus offers inspiration for American unity in beautiful, well-researched illustrated journals, written by professionals across the political spectrum, to help us all choose unity, build endurance, and become the leaders who make our country more just and free for the next generation.
Journal Entry #140
ISSUE 020: WHICH WAY FORWARD? — PART 7