Welcome to the Our Moral Compass Podcast. Each daily reading focuses on a different quote on how we can best apply it to our own moral compass and one of the five areas in Social Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills and Responsible Decision Making. Thank you for listening and we hope you consider subscribing to the podcast for future episodes.
We Need to Dig Down Deep
“We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.”
-Cesar Chavez
Strength. Whether it is physical or mental both require a lot of time and effort. Strength is developed over time and through a deep level of commitment. A commitment to what you envision as what you want to look like from the outside as well as on the inside. Whether it is drawing on our strength to lift a heavy weight that may first seem impossible to lift or overcoming a tragic and unexpected loss in your family, we have to reach certain depths within our soul to find the strength to overcome it.
When life has us in what may seem like that perpetual pit of despair it is where we must dig down deep, draw from our reserves and pull ourselves up and out of that pit. César Chávez reminds us in today’s quote that although we may be forced to live a certain way doesn’t mean we have to stay at that level. We can use our own struggles as drivers to become our strength and endure when times are rough.
César Chávez was an American labor leader, community organizer, businessman, and Latino American civil rights activist who believed in nonviolence. He fought for the rights of farmer workers and felt they deserved better treatment, respect, dignity, justice, and fairness. Just in this brief description alone you can see many similar qualities between him and the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and other activists.
Although we may not look at ourselves as activists in the same light as a César Chávez or Dr. King I believe we are in fact activists. As an educator I am an activist for equitable education and that students develop their own moral compass through acquiring the skills of Social Emotional Learning. Doctors and nurses are activists for fighting for the rights of their patients as well as themselves in making sure their well being as be looked out fo during this current pandemic and beyond. There are even activities who want more funding to go towards mental health services for those families who have lost their jobs or their homes due to layoffs during this unprecedented time. The list of activists goes on and on.
Despite what challenges may lie before us, no matter whether things in our profession or in our lives in general look bad, we must believe that we will muster up the strength to not just survive but thrive. And the cool thing about this is, we don’t have to do this alone. We have people, our friends, our families, even those we have yet to meet that believe in the same causes we do. So let’s come together to get overcome what lies before us. Knowing this we can make this world a better place.
What does this quote mean to you and how can you apply today’s message towards defining/refining your own moral compass?
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Music from https://filmmusic.io
“Relaxing Piano Music” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
A special thank you to Feedspot for recognizing the Our Moral Compass podcast as one of the Top 10 Social Emotional Learning Podcasts on the internet. It is an honor to be amongst the other podcasts on this list as we all strive to make this world a better place.
Becoming The Change 