If you’ve been stuck…
If you keep waiting for the right mood, the right time, or the right clarity…
If you know what you need to do but can’t seem to move…
I wrote this for you.
It’s short. Direct. Built to help you stop circling and start moving.
You can grab it for $0.99 on Amazon today. If you don’t have a Kindle, just download the free app and read it there.
Get your copy here.
That is what today’s post is about.
Most of us do not need more information.
We need action.
So, let’s talk about why starting feels so hard and what you can do about it.
The other day, my daughter and I were talking. During the conversation, the idea came up about how we all tend to think about “those people over there.”
You know the phenomenon.
It’s one of the easiest ways to understand the current division in our world.
It goes something like: “I agree, there are problems, but it’s because of those people over there.”
Or, it might sound like, “The division is because of those people over there!”
In other words, there are problems, but they’re not because of me or my people.
You can hear this sentiment whenever we move from lamenting the problems of the world
.
My town is in the middle of deciding if they want a data center to be built here. And there have been a lot of great conversations about it.
Issues have been discussed alongside responsibility.
One woman asked, “If I use AI, and AI uses data centers, do I have a responsibility to be willing to have a data center in my community?”
That sounds like good logic.
Logic that should be explored when working through such a weighty decision.
The responses were wild.
Most attempted to verbally eviscerate her.
You can see this conversation when the idea of clean energy comes up.
Jane Q. Citizen: We need clean energy, or our world is going to end.
Farmer: Ok, I’ll lease my land to solar power people.
Jane Q. and her husband, John Q: What! What’s wrong with you?
And on and on it spins.
Identity drives the idea of “Yeah, of course, there are broken systems, but it’s because of those people over there.”
But its fuel is preference and comfort.
We want change.
We just don’t want to be inconvenienced.
We want justice.
We just don’t want the cost.
We want better systems.
We just don’t want to examine the ways we benefit from the current ones.
“That’s a policy issue.”
“That’s corporate greed.”
“That’s political corruption.”
“That’s rural ignorance.”
“That’s urban elitism.”
“That’s the other party.”
Notice how quickly the responsibility shifts outward.
“Those people over there.”
It’s psychologically efficient. Blame is easier than ownership. Distance is easier than self-examination. If the problem lives over there, I don’t have to wrestle with how I participate in it.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Most of the systems we criticize are sustained by ordinary people making ordinary choices that feel normal.
We consume what is convenient.
We vote in ways that protect our interests.
We defend narratives that keep our identity intact.
We resist change that disrupts our comfort.
Then we point.
The woman asking about AI and data centers wasn’t defending a corporation. She was asking a moral question:
If I benefit from something, do I share responsibility for its footprint?
That question destabilizes people because it removes the clean boundary between “good people like us” and “bad people over there.”
And once that boundary dissolves, we’re left with something much harder:
Shared responsibility.
Emotionally, that’s difficult because it threatens identity. If I’m even partially implicated, I can’t maintain moral superiority. And moral superiority feels safe. It feels stabilizing.
It protects the ego.
But it also prevents growth.
Division thrives on projection. We externalize what we don’t want to confront internally. Our impatience becomes their ignorance. Our rigidity becomes their extremism. Our fear becomes their corruption.
And around and around it goes.
The work of emotional maturity asks a different question:
Where am I participating in the thing I criticize?
Not in a shame-based way.
Not in a self-flagellating way.
But in a grounded, honest way.
Because the moment we move from “those people” to “we,” or better to “me,” something shifts.
We stop performing outrage.
We start having conversations.
We trade slogans for nuance.
We move from blame to responsibility.
And responsibility is not about taking on the entire world.
It’s about owning your part.
If you use AI, that matters.
If you want clean energy, that matters.
If you demand lower prices, that matters.
If you vote, that matters.
Every preference has an impact.
Every comfort has a cost.
The question isn’t whether problems exist.
They do.
The question is whether we’re willing to examine our role in sustaining them.
Emotional growth always moves from accusation to ownership.
The world doesn’t change when “those people over there” finally get their act together.
It changes when enough of us stop pretending we’re standing outside the system.
May you have the courage to notice where it’s easier to point than to pause.
May you resist the comfort of moral distance and choose the harder work of honest reflection.
May you lament what is broken without pretending you are untouched by it.
May you trade superiority for humility, slogans for conversation, outrage for ownership.
May you ask, quietly and consistently, “What is my part?”
And may that question not shrink you with shame, but steady you with agency.
Because change does not begin “over there.”
It begins wherever someone is willing to say, “Start with me.”
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