“Healing or Hiding?”

This entry is part 35 of 36 in the series Deep Thoughts

I came across a quote recently that caught my attention:

“I don’t want wellness practices that teach me to be at peace with an inequitable world. I need practices that help me stay sane while doing my part to fight against it. If it makes you compliant to injustice, it’s not healing, it’s sedation.” — Michell C. Clark

In a time when injustice is baked into so many systems, when cruelty is often not a flaw, but a feature, those words ring like an alarm clock in a quiet room.

We live in a culture that encourages us to stay calm. Don’t make waves. Don’t get too angry. Count your blessings. Take a walk. Breathe deeply. Don’t watch the news—it’s too depressing. Scroll through pictures of other people’s vacations instead. “Don’t worry, be happy.”

But that kind of peace comes at a cost. If what we call peace requires us to shut out the suffering of others, it’s not peace. It’s avoidance. And eventually, it becomes complicity.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t take care of ourselves. These are wearying times. It’s essential to rest. But there’s a difference between resting to recover and retreating so we don’t have to see. When we label any discomfort as something negative, we end up tuning out what ought to stir us into action.

Lately, I’ve been reading more about Stoicism, not the Instagram version, but the ancient practice. One idea keeps echoing in my mind. Epictetus wrote, “You become what you give your attention to.” That’s not a metaphor. It’s an instruction.

If we give our attention only to curated comfort, we become disconnected from truth. If we let our desire for personal peace drown out the cries of people being harmed, we become the kind of citizens who sleep through history while others are being written out of it.

I understand the temptation to retreat. I’ve felt it. I’m 66 years old, navigating personal change, financial uncertainty, and the thousand small worries that come with this stage of life. The idea of just turning down the volume on the world can sound inviting. But I’ve learned the hard way that sedation doesn’t solve anything. It just delays the cost.

And while I don’t have a formal “wellness practice,” I do reflect. I try to hold myself accountable. That’s why this quote landed the way it did. It begs a question I can’t ignore: Am I using rest to strengthen myself for what matters or to shield myself from it?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting peace. But peace is not passive. Peace, real peace, is built. “It ain’t easy.” It’s full of difficult conversations and uncomfortable truths. It requires that we stay present in the face of injustice, rather than drifting away from it.

Sometimes, the most honest thing we can do is admit that the world is not okay. That people are being hurt. That our systems reward greed and punish vulnerability. That something deep in us recoils from all of that, and rightly so.

That recoil is not something to smooth over. It’s something to honor.

What keeps me sane isn’t a bubble bath or a positive affirmation. It’s knowing that I’m still paying attention. That I still care. That I haven’t turned away. That I’ve written when it was easier to be silent. That I’ve stood up for others, even when it cost something. I try to live in a way that aligns with what I claim to believe.

I’m not perfect at it. Far from it. But I want my sanity to come from being awake, not numb.

There’s a kind of healing that doesn’t ask us to look away from the world’s pain. It asks us to carry it differently. To sit with it and not be consumed. To feel its weight and still say, “I’m here, and I won’t give up.”

That kind of healing isn’t soft, and it’s certainly not comfortable. But it’s real. And it reminds me that peace without justice is just sedation with a nice label.

So I’ll keep on reading, writing, and listening. I’ll try to keep showing up. Not because it’s easy. Not because it brings me serenity. But because this world needs more people who refuse to go to sleep.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been building towards all along, but simply the choice to stay present. To keep my eyes open. To stay human in a time that makes forgetting look easier.