Vol. 45 of Thursday Third Things ☕
Urgency Culture Is Killing Me
For the newbies — welcome to The Third Thing! Every (most) Thursdays I send out a “Thursday Third Things” email full of things I’m reading, thinking about, listening to, watching, and sometimes buying. Enjoy!
Well y’all, we’re really in it. It’s 2025. Trump will be inaugurated in just 11 days and already the news headlines are reading like a season of Parks and Recreation. Never mind that we are in desperate need of things like affordable housing and healthcare, Trump has latched onto more important things like taking over Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and annexing Canada. Yes, really. Half of America wanted this.
This was the setting of my first week back at work after a long vacation, so I was already primed for chaos, but still, I was immediately sucker punched by the urgency culture that is D.C. nonprofits (perhaps all nonprofits?). It took only 12 hours before the insomnia reared its hideous head again. My inbox was overflowing, urgent AM phone calls ripped me from sleep, and reactive hyper-critical feedback poured over my work like the muddy waters of a flash flood.
And with that, I promptly had a breakdown. Last night, I had to do a hard reset. After spending a solid chunk of the evening curled in the fetal position, crying on my couch, I picked up Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Tich Nhat Hanh and told myself just to read it for 15 minutes and see if it made me feel better.
And it did. A lot.
This book is the antithesis of how most organizations in the nonprofit industrial complex do their work. For example, in 1976, some people in the Buddhist peace movement were organizing relief work to rescue refugees on boats in the Gulf of Siam (actually important work that actually impacts people’s lives), and the Malaysian government was NOT happy about it. While hundreds of refugees waited on a boat with a broken engine and not enough food or water for everyone, the Singapore police shut down the Buddhists’ movement ordering them to leave within 24 hours. What were they to do?
If this were a modern-day nonprofit, I can tell you exactly how this scenario would have played out, because every nonprofit is basically the same: The “leader” of the organization would have quickly swung into reactivity and defensiveness, losing sight of all strategy and prep that had been built by the rest of the team for a moment such as this—strategy they likely demanded their team create. That “leader” would then throw the blame on junior-level staff and waste precious time wanting to know how this could have happened rather than figuring out how to lead the team out of it. The comms team would be swiftly thrown under the bus as they waited for no fewer than five people to weigh in on a Tweet of which no one could agree if it was more powerful to say “refugee” or “victim” while the refugee/victims starved out at sea.
Ultimately the entire campaign would have collapsed while everyone’s cortisol levels shot through the roof under the intensity of expectations and demands and someone probably would have been fired for “not pulling their weight.”
Meanwhile, those folks on the boat DEFINITELY would not have been saved. Then that org would likely spend the next six months absolutely blasting its marketing department for not recovering its public image fast enough, putting the entire organization at risk of losing funding, ultimately leading to several staff members quitting, wondering why they ever wanted to help people in the first place, completely disenfranchising the movement, and making them feel like they might as well go make some real money working for Meta instead of this junk show which can’t even remotely stick to their mission without burning out any person who dares to step within ten feet of its circle.
DEEP BREATH.
And here’s how Hanh handled it: “I saw that if I couldn’t have peace in that moment, I would never be able to have peace…I will never forget every second of sitting meditation, every breath, and every step I took in mindfulness through that night. At around four in the morning I finally got the insight that we could appeal to the French ambassador, who had been silently supporting us, to intervene in our favor and ask the Singapore authorities to grant us leave to stay just ten more days…The ambassador agreed, and at the last minute, we got approval from the Immigration Office to stay. If we hadn’t had the practice of meditation…we would easily have been overwhelmed by suffering and unable to keep going.”
After I read that, I stopped crying, sat up, and said to myself, I am fucking DONE living like this.
If Hanh could come up with a way to save hundreds of lives while the clock ran out without absolutely imploding on the people he was working with, well, then lord knows I should be able to maintain peace while writing silly little Tweets even if my coworkers are having their meltdowns all around me.
While I may not formally be a leader in my work, I CAN decide if I’m going to have peace in my work. And peace is far more important to everyone’s well-being than some Tweets, emails, or newsletters ever will be.
In the book, Hanh says, “To have peace inside is a very basic need. Without it, you can’t do anything to help others.”
This is why I’m often not sure if nonprofits are actually helping others. I don’t see a lot of peace coming out of these spaces. I see stress, urgency, low wages, burnout, and vanity metrics. Nonprofit leaders are some of the most frantic, distracted, and panicked people I know. And I don’t want to become that.
I’m worried I already am that.
And so, just a week into this new year, I am taking a step back and assessing what’s really going on here. My usual MO in these tricky moments is to run. Rage quit. Burn everything to the ground and start over. But Hanh cautions against that saying, “When suffering is emerging, adopt another attitude. Don’t try to run away. This is my recommendation. Stay where you are and welcome it, whether it is anger or frustration or a longing for something that is not satisfied. Be ready to say hello to it, be ready to embrace it tenderly and live with it. And you will discover, as I have, that when you can accept it and welcome it, it does not bother you anymore.”
Suffering is definitely emerging. Another Trump presidency is looming, the 9-5 is a shit show, and the cost of rent is TOO DAMN HIGH!
But I’m going to try and invite it in. Welcome it. And see what happens.
—What Could Citizens’ Assemblies Do for American Politics?
—The Amateurization of Everything
—Loud, angry, and Indigenous: Heavy metal takes on colonialism and climate change
—What if you replaced self-help with poetry?
—Everything is Enshittified
—The disappearing dream of a writing career
—What Happens When a Whole Generation Never Grows Up?
—How to disappear completely
—The Rats in the Toilets: A building-wide nightmare that I’ve never put behind me.
—Sam Smith: Tiny Desk Concert
—Comedian Ronny Chieng’s new special on Netflix
—Sweet Home by SYML (cry every time I listen to it)
—Howling by SYML (featuring Lucius)
—The Black Dress EP by Jonah Kagen
—Pork Shoulder Braised with Apples: J and I are re-exploring our love of braising and I think the darkest days of winter are the perfect time to do that.
WOW.
so glad you're here.