Life in Activism: The Moment I Realized I Didn't Know How to Solve the World's Problems Is the Moment I Got Better at Solving Them

Photo by Fateme Alaei on Unsplash

I remember the precise moment when I realized, despite all my pretensions and all my experience, I did not actually know that much about how to solve the problems of the world.

It was one evening in the spring of 2016. The Bernie-Hillary primary was in full bloom. My Facebook feed, which was primarily composed of the hundreds of friends I had made in politics over the previous 12 years, was flowering with multitudes of short, fresh, hot takes. I enjoyed participating in these hot take conversations, which mostly discussed, with strident certainty, how Democrats and/or progressives could win elections if their leaders would just act differently.

That particular evening, I just could not get my soon-to-be three year-old son to stay in bed, even though it was 10:30 pm. His refusal to stay in bed, no matter how my wife and I cajoled him, was preventing me from participating in a lively evening of Facebook hot takes. As soon as I was about to post something, he would start crying, or show up in our room again, or even escape downstairs. His antics were preventing me from offering up my quick, genius solutions on how Democratic and progressive leaders could win every election and solve all the world's problems.

Then I had an epiphany.