Ring In: 2020 is the Year to Put Cowardice in its Place
You can wish all you want, rail against the injustice of the locked door, commiserate with all your locked-out friends, none of that will matter. The door will stay locked until you ring the bell.
But it isn’t easy ringing the bell. You have to walk up to the house, stand on the porch, and push the button. And then you have to wait. The waiting can be murder, all the thinking about having made a mistake, being in the wrong place, not knowing what to say if a person answer the door. The self doubt can make you run back to your car and peel off down the street.
But the people who change things, the ones who are heard and heeded, they don’t think twice. If a door is closed to them, they ring the bell. And then they tap their foot waiting for an answer. They insist.
Watch them, the insisters, and do what they do. Ring in.
Don’t hide out on Facebook, snarking your way through this history-changing presidential election, when people you know, people just like you, are registering voters, knocking on doors, and making telephone calls. They were just as worried as you about no one answering the door or people telling them to go away. They were just as unsure of their ability to make a case, advocate for a candidate, and get it right.
At some point, though, they stowed their fears in checked baggage and just got on the plane.
More of us have to do that. We have to get out and ring the bell. We have to not second guess ourselves or indulge the fiction that other people are more capable than we are. We can’t let our reluctance become a fuzzy blanket that shelters us for yet another night watching politics unfold on CNN while we shake our heads and post clever observations on social media. If we do, we’ll be watching election night 2020 with our heads in our hands. It doesn’t have to be that way.
It’s time to go ring the bell. Ring in.
