It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. This is a familiar quote from “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. And this quote may feel more familiar in the present time than ever before. How can something be the best and the worst at the same time? This is a binary way of saying that the world we live in isn’t black and white. The world operates in the grey zone. Times are complicated right now. We are living through multiple levels of international war and active conflict. We are entering an active national Presidential Cycle—which most likely will feel intense, volatile, and divisive. We are recovering from a global pandemic that shifted how we live, work, and engage with our humanity. And–we are living in a world where life expectancy and medical innovation are at an all-time high while we experience a national inflation crisis. We are witnessing an increased number of communities willing to protest and fight for equity while we continue to witness displacement of communities, unaffordable housing, and food insecurity. There is a collective understanding of discrimination and policies that affect health outcomes for marginalized communities. And we don’t feel close to solving these pivotal issues. We are truly living through the “best” of times” and the “worst” of times. And we don’t always know how to make sense of this.

How do we make sense of the world we are living in that includes the best of innovation, humanity, and cultural shifts and the worst of our ability to collaborate beyond what divides us? How do we focus on what is in front of us when larger issues and conflicts cloud above us? Below are some tips to help us navigate the world we are experiencing.

Center your mission

The problems of our world cannot be solved by one person or one organization trying to do everything. Every mission counts towards a collective society. Your mission matters and your mission is needed. When current events and global conflicts make it feel like more needs to be done, it’s essential to remember that you are doing your part. Centering your mission daily is a constant reminder that you are involved in the future of humanity. We all need to do different things for our world to create the future we dream of. Sometimes, it can feel like we are not doing enough. Or it can feel like what we are doing isn’t what is needed. When you center your mission, you remind yourself that at one point, you decided that this was the most important thing to do. Your mission matters. We all can’t solve the same problem. Together, we can solve different problems.

How to do this:

1. Allow your mission to be a compass as you navigate complexity in the world. Let your mission be the north star so you continue to have strategic direction. When you have difficult decisions to make, see what options align best with your North Star.
2. Have your mission statement be visible to you often. Mission statements get lost if they are hidden in your strategic plan. Print it out. Add your mission to more documents at the top. Keep it visible.
3. Believe in your mission.

Create community

The world is big. Our local communities are a microcosm of the larger 8 billion population of this world. Communities create the larger world that we live in. When the world around us feels big, create community. For many of us, it will be about finding community as much as creating it. A community cares. A community fosters. A community stands up for its members. A community makes the world feel smaller, and sometimes, safer. A community understands. A community can mobilize quickly. A community is connected. When it feels like the problems of our humanity are too big to understand or too big to care for, create a community.

How to do this:

1. What we often seek usually comes to us. If you have the mindset of wanting to be around a community that cares for the things that matter to you, you will create an openness for it.
2. Let others know you are looking to create a community or immerse yourself in a community. When we isolate ourselves, we think that community is beyond our capacity. It’s powerful to ask to join the community and express that you need community.
3. Take the initiative to create spaces for others to join you in the things you are doing. Invite others.

Consider history

Most often, we are told to look ahead, into the future. We place a lot of value on the days that have not come yet, and we are trained at a very young age to prepare for the future. At the same time, the future never comes. The only certain thing is “yesterday,” the past. The past can be a unique way to make peace with the present. The past will remind us that our humanity has struggled with war, conflict, climate, famine, and pandemics before. The past reminds us that the problems we face are not new. They may not even be under new circumstances. The past reminds us that humanity can survive suffering and that humanity is durable. When we look back to consider history, we will notice that we have seen the best and the worst of humanity. We continue to navigate this duality.

How to do this:

1. Read. Reading any social issue from a historical perspective can give new meaning and understanding to the present.
2. Engage elders. Those who have lived before us and have seen previous decades of our humanity have a unique lens. They have seen what we will never see. Ask for stories. Ask for what they remember. Trust the wisdom of their lived experience.

Capture progress

When we capture progress, we are also capturing the essence of the hard work and determination that can be overlooked. This can be applied to individuals and organizations. When we capture progress, we capture a celebration, an essential milestone, and a sense of certainty. Progress is only visible when it is seen. It is essential to capture when we get to milestones so we can understand that our work matters. When we feel like nothing is changing in the larger world around us, we need to have methods to capture how the world is changing around us. Change is constant and in a world that is always changing, it’s not easy to see it. So, we must capture progress.

How to do this:

1. Use a method that is reliable and consistent. One method is using OKRs to create measurable goals and indicators. OKRs stand for Objectives & Key Results. There are many methods to choose from and it’s important to find what works best for you and your organization.
2. Create time to measure and track progress. It is easy to miss this if time is not blocked off to do just this. Make time for it.

Connect ideas

Ideas do not exist alone. Each idea is built from another idea and their connectedness adds up to the full puzzle of our humanity. We cannot fight for climate change without also considering the impact of racism and education. We cannot advocate for LGBTQA issues without considering the issues of refugees and immigrants. All the fights that we own individually and all the ideas that we think are worth fighting for are connected to our basic humanity. We cannot solve problems as if they are unique problems. The larger conflicts we are experiencing in the global world are all connected. When we think that we are solving the largest problem, we diminish the value of our work. We make our world smaller when we separate our ideas from others.

How to do this:

1. Ask more questions. Allow yourself to question your beliefs and what makes you stand behind them so you can see what else is connected.
2. Say “and” rather than “but” so that you can build on ideas rather than disconnect them.

Our human experience and existence are limited with time. What we do with our time and what we give our energy to impacts the greater future. There have been better times. There have been worse times. There has been no time like the present. What you are doing in the present is essential for the tomorrow we have not yet seen.