Short answer: Try another approach.
Longer answer: Keep the same worthy goal, but try a different approach.
For example, let’s say you’re trying to convince your local government officials of the importance of vegetation in mitigating floods and heat. Let’s see you’ve been doing this for years, and it doesn’t seem to be working.
This is a real life example ha ha. I say ha ha because I’m the one who has repeatedly tried this and it seems to not work.
But this is the point where people want to give up and say, “I tried to get local government to take some simple steps to help stop flooding in my local area, but it didn’t work.”
When instead, we should be saying, I tried emailing Public Works about this, and no one answered.
Or people nodded and said good idea, but kept doing the same things they had been doing.
So then, I tried participating in my local tree advisory board. A lot of people nodded and said good idea, but our actions still didn’t change.
So then, I tried writing a fiction story that is set in my city. (This one is a work in progress! I’ll let you know what the results are.)
The fact is that even when things don’t seem to be working, ideas are percolating into the public consciousness. Not long after I started speaking up about the connection between de-vegetation and flooding, more of my fellow citizens started talking about this in citizen comment period at the various board and commission meetings as well.
Our work is to keep finding the next step when we’re not getting the result we want. It’s not to abandon the very worthy and essential goal. Abandoning my efforts to do my part as an educator-activist to reduce flooding in my city and bioregion is not an option. There’s too much suffering happening.
Do you have an example from your own life? How’s it going? What has worked, and what hasn’t? Have you ever been tempted to give up? If so, how did you keep yourself engaged?