Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Post-Election Time Expansion

It was one week ago when we woke to news of a harsh new America after the presidential election results. For many of us, the time since the election has seemed like a much longer period of time, and it can be a surprise to look back and realize that all the changes we have just seen have taken place in only one week. This perception of time expansion is a real advantage — it translates to real time to do things for those of us who may now feel we are racing to keep up with the flow of events. Millions of us have made millions of changes in the last week. One simple example of this is found in the ACLU’s new Twitter followers, a 25 percent increase in one week. I could write out a long list of other, more substantive changes I have seen, but I don’t want to distract from the key point: when you have a strong sense of purpose, even if it results from a crisis, you get more time to take action. In times like this, when there are important things to do, hold on to that sense of purpose and you will magnify your impact.