Causing good trouble requires confidence in your own ability to stand up to power and then holding your nerve to actually see it through.
Even when your rebellion is a really small step, we’re so hardwired to play by the rules, it can seem impossibly hard to take your stand.
That is until we remind ourselves we’ve all done it, how good it felt and that, of course, we can all do it again, and again.
In this chapter we’ve seen how small acts and big change come from the same place, but in order to begin you have to know where the source of your power lies as an individual.
What follows is a challenge that really resonates in our workshops; its usefulness is not immediately obvious to everyone, but it reconnects most people with their power to take a stand.
So the challenge this time is to look into your memory and ask:
When did you first stand up to power?
Give yourself a chance to let this one sink in as I appreciate it’s not something you might have thought about before in this way or might immediately remember, but give it time and you will.
Try to find the moment or moments when you first understood your own influence or when you clearly saw your own potential to create and shape the world around you.
When I’ve run this exercise in the Be More Pirate workshops, the answers are usually focused on a time when a person has stood up to something or someone they felt was being unjust, when they’ve pushed back, when they’ve fought their corner, held their nerve or just said no, and in return the world gave way, backed down, yielded or said sorry.
Often there’s an instance in life when someone has found their voice and others listened, or a moment when a relationship has shifted, or when someone has just point blank refused to do as they were told and got away with it.
Mine was in primary school. I must have been eight, and after it happened the class and the teacher fell silent for what felt like minutes, before I was sent to the head teacher for a punishment that never materialized. A lifetime later I can point to this exact moment that I lost all fear of authority, I realized there isn’t anyone you can’t squirt in the eye with a water pistol if you really want to.
It doesn’t matter how big or small the action was, what counts is that in that moment you realized your own power amidst the context of the world. The point is that we all have the power we need, and we’ve all felt it; we just allow it to be forgotten, we choose not to live with it, and as you’re going to be using it soon, it may need a kick-start. So first try to remember what it felt like, and then remind yourself to use it.
