An Open Letter to My Community

The challenge I’m accepting for 2023

Once upon a time, I worked for a fairly large media company (which shall remain nameless) that probably should’ve shut down operations long before I ever darkened the door.

I don’t say that because the quality of their work stank or because the work environment was toxic, though both of those statements are true. I say it because I think the boss ultimately wanted to do something else.

Now, this is just me guessing. I could be totally wrong, but I got the feeling that, instead of a small media company serving a niche audience, he’d have liked to do something more mainstream. The only thing that stood in his way, was his previous success.

He’d already become one of the most influential [redacted] in the world, with the largest [redacted] media company serving [redacted], and seemed to have profited handsomely from it. To start something new would be to risk failure.

I’ve reflected on my time at that media company a lot in recent years because I’ve felt like I’ve been at that crossroads for some time now.

When I changed the name of my email list to Hope and Hard Pills, and started writing little nuggets of practical insight about social progress, it was easy, exciting, and incredibly meaningful. I would wake up at 5AM to write and spend long nights poring over books on nonviolent struggle.

I’d hoped to play a significant part in making wisdom about nonviolent revolutions our common sense in the United States. There was even a point where I hoped to stand in the tradition of the iconic nonviolent strategist James Lawson, the architect of the Nashville boycott during the Civil Rights struggle.

My podcast of the same name was a similar experience. I was overjoyed and energized every time I spoke with a new world-changer.

Little did I know, that in a few years that email list would have thousands of subscribers from all over the world and that the podcast would be in the top 10 most shared podcasts on Spotify in 2022.

But…

As I said before, sometimes previous success becomes an obstacle to new endeavors.