How Can I Help?
Sorry for the delay in getting Friday’s post up. Honestly, I didn’t even realize that it was Friday until about 11:30 last night. Things are crazy around here, if that gives you any context for how out of it we’ve been. I did spend the day in Kansas City with my dad, sister, and some friends and got to see some excellent training that both opened up and answered the questions I’ve been asking recently.
Lately, I’ve been struggling to figure out my niche. A rule of thumb for anyone who wants to or is writing a book is to figure out your niche. No book is for everyone, and it’s certainly not marketable if there’s nothing to target. Deciding that niche links back to everything I do from the blog to social media to my dream-achieving strategy.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I want to help military spouses find and achieve their dreams. I’ve felt called to dreams for most of my life, and I certainly feel called to love my husband in this military life. Seeing the struggle and sacrifice of military spouses has only fueled my heart even more to help their dreams come true because I believe we all deserve that. I genuinely believe this is the space I want to and should be serving in.
But helping people find and achieve their dreams isn’t simple. It’s not a matter of asking what do you want, and then figuring out how you get it. There’s so much that comes before figuring out what we want and even more that goes into figuring out how to get it. Some people know what they want and simply need help connecting the dots and staying accountable to their plan. Some people need help figuring out how to even chase a dream with the reality of what life demands. But there are so many others who can’t even begin to think about dreaming because of the situations that they are in.
Thinking about the statistics of domestic abuse in the military brings up something that needs to be tackled before dreams come true. Those spouses may dream of true love, a life without fear, or safety to go home at night. But achieving those dreams is not and should not be treated like the dreams of starting a business, running a marathon, or making it to space. I genuinely believe that everything can be a dream. I believe dreams are tiny, simple, and achievable. I also believe that they are massive, difficult, and achievable. And I fully believe that they are impossible and yet achievable.
But the bare minimum of life should not have to be our dreams. Dreams grow as we do, but we shouldn’t have to start by demanding and striving to have our basic human needs met. There’s a considerable percentage of military families who suffer from food insecurity. And I fully understand that it is hard to dream when the cupboards are empty. It’s hard to dream when we don’t know what awaits us when we get home. It’s hard to dream when our lives are in danger.
There’s a blog that I follow pretty religiously. They wrote a book that completely changed my life and marriage. Their entire goal was to help marriages and sex lives, but as they got deeper into their work, they realized that it wasn’t as simple as telling people to do x,y, zed (the bloggers are Canadian, so that’s a little shout-out to them). They realized that there were toxic teachings that people had internalized that needed to be reversed and removed before these people could find the joy they were searching for. I’m feeling the same about dreams. I want to help in this area, but I don’t know what to do about everything that lies between the desires of our hearts and the fact that families are truly struggling.
So where’s the balance between encouraging people to strive for more—to chase everything they’ve ever desired—and tackling the real-world issues we as a community face? I know I can’t do everything, but I have to do something. Maybe my space is to serve when people are ready to step beyond, but I need to know there are people in the trenches working on the other issues. Maybe I need to step into the trenches, fight that battle, and help with dreams along the way. But then I face the questions of how do I help? Where do I start? And am I even the right person for the job?
Our wing commander is hosting a town hall in a few weeks where we can submit anonymous questions to be answered. Where do we begin fixing problems? It certainly starts with bringing them up, but raising them to someone who doesn’t have all that much authority when it comes to the whole military may not lead to anything. I’ll be out of the country when the town hall happens, so I won’t be able to hear the answers, but I’d still like to submit the right questions. Maybe I’ll get someone thinking. Maybe I can get the ball rolling, but anonymously raising questions isn’t how we make real change.
I guess I am sharing all of this to say that I don’t have it all figured out. I definitely know the broad strokes of my dream, but the details are ever-changing. I feel like I am left standing in an auditorium like Max Goodwin on New Amsterdam, asking, “How can I help?” If you have an answer, I would love to hear it.