I planned this morning to write about yesterday’s events but wasn’t sure what I’d say. It so happened, though, that I read a line in Amy Jen Su’s “The Leader You Want to Be,” that really resonated:

Whatever we “feed,” whatever we sustain with our time, energy, and action, is what will flourish. We can nurture and sustain an attitude of anger, arrogance, or inferiority, just as we can nurture and sustain an attitude of peace, empathy, or compassion.

Yesterday we observed that feeding hatred and resentment and lies and sedition will cause hatred, resentment, lies, and sedition to flourish. And yesterday, my attention fed my own sense of anger and distress.

Today, though, I am trying to give myself permission to continue to both process that anger and distress and cultivate an attitude of benevolence. That’s because there is work to be done internally, and there is work to be done externally.

Whatever we feed will flourish. The internal focus must allow for grace and growth. Although it’s normal to lose focus, we all can do more to try and nurture and sustain an attitude of peace, empathy, and compassion.

Whatever we feed will flourish. The external focus must allow for encouragement and support. In others, there is good will to be nurtured and sustained.

Whatever we feed will flourish. And yet, too often, we allow unacceptable violations and behaviors to flourish, because we allow them to be fed. We—I—can and must do more to add our voices to refuse to let others feed hatred, resentment, lies, sedition, and oppression.

It’s not enough to personally refuse to feed those behaviors. We must do more to prevent others from doing so as well.