Why Occupy Wall Street Matters to You

Oct 18, 2011

Why does this global wave of demonstrations (951 cities in 82 countries this weekend) matter to you, right now, today, in your office or home, reading this?

Because it is calling you to ask yourself “Do I want to create a society based on selfishness and materialism or a society based on caring and equality?”

Occupy Wall Street is not about politics – not first.

It is about waking up and asking, “What is fair? What is right? What am I willing to do to take action on what I believe?

We say we are all connected, we are all one, but do we act like it?

Occupy Wall Street is needling you with hope reunited with action.

It is asking you to turn away from apathy and despair.

It is telling you – with stinky chaotic in-your-face wildness – that the world has been for sale to the highest bidder for far too long.

You can watch from afar with detached curiosity.

You can let your politics (right or left) muddy the real questions.

You can let cynicism, busyness or fear keep you from engaging with what matters most to you – whether it’s pollution in your watershed or 300,000 teachers losing their jobs while Bank of America reported record profits for the 7th consecutive quarter.

You can dismiss this chaotic edge of change because it’s not branded and predigested and easy to understand in a sound bite.

I know there is a part of me that wants to. There is a part of me that wants change to be easy, pretty, and done.

But there is a bigger part of me that wants the peace and beauty and safety I experience every day – the golden light outside on the Japanese maple, the dogs curled by my feet, the sweet silence, the walk in the woods, enough good food to eat, the chance to write this to you – for all.

My request to you is simple: engage with this call. Read, talk to friends, grapple, go to the closest occupy movement and see for yourself but please don’t dismiss this.

Because we all want a world based on caring and equality.

Thank you.

Love,

Jen

Recent articles I like about Occupy Wall Street:

Global warming activist Bill McKibben on the link to the environment

Nick Kristof on how income equality hurts the economy and your future

Eve Ensler on what’s really going on

CNN Doug Rushkoff on the truth: we do know what this is all about

Jettison Self-Doubt and Lose the Itty-Bitty-Shitty Committee and Make Your Thing Now

From the national best-selling author of The Woman’s Comfort Book and Why Bother.

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