Get in Good Trouble
The legendary civil rights activist John Lewis died last night. He marched with Martin Luther King and almost lost his life in the battle for fairness and racial justice in America. And the last 33 years he served in Congress.
His rebel journey is typical of many. As a young man, he was righteously impatient. His draft of the speech to introduce Martin Luther King at the March on Washington in 1963 made reference to a scorched earth policy, but he heeded arguments to drop such polarizing language. He worked to build institutions to advance his ideas; he didn’t go it alone. And then in the 1980s he abandoned his protest persona and became a politician and a Congressperson, something he had never imagined himself doing. “If someone had told me in 1963 that one day I would be in Congress, I would have said, 'You're crazy. You don't know what you're talking about.’”
He got into a lot of trouble in his life. And he appears to have loved it.
Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.
Many rebels at work are disturbed, perhaps even frightened by their first brush with trouble. I know I was. Often rebels are high achievers and ambitious, and the slap of the status quo surprises. Rebels at Work are those people who decide to keep going after that first trouble.
And what is Good Trouble? Well, John Lewis gives us one clue. It’s necessary to achieve your goals, to make progress. But there’s another aspect of Good Trouble. It’s on behalf of the community, your colleagues, the mission. Good Trouble is never primarily about you.
Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.
