Have you ever felt inspired, hopeful, able and optimistic about your ability to right a wrong?
Have you ever felt frustrated, small, ineffective and helpless about your ability to do anything about a problem?
I have, both ways.
Recently my wife and I saw the movie "The Butler," starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, and, in what is probably the most intentionally ironic casting in the history of moviemaking, Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan. Although the supposedly true story was certainly exaggerated as only Hollywood can, the film starkly brought forth the dilemma between accepting the status quo and taking large and even uncalculated risks to try to change its wrongs.
So what can or what should we do? The huge message from the film is: both.
In life, some issues are worth dying for, but trying to right some intolerable wrongs sometimes simply turns people into martyrs without anything good coming from their efforts. The trick is determining which is which.