I want to believe I am woke, but I know I’m not. At best, I am waking. I am a “Karen” trying hard to understand others lived experiences.

I prefer to say that I am waking. It acknowledges my intentions while also acknowledging that I – any of us – will ever truly be woke. Wokeness is not an achievement. It’s a never-ending journey.

Wokeness is not reserved for white people. We all have biases – some we are aware of while others we are not. We find them when we run up against our assumptions or expectations.

We are at once all connected while living separate lives. Separate journeys. Separate purposes. There are two action items for me in this parallel knowing.

First, when someone tells me their story, I must believe them. Even if I don’t think it’s true. Seek to understand. Listen. Learn. Consider.

When I worked at an organization that offered ESL (English as a Second Language) classes, the instructors reported that students wrote about and shared their journeys at the end of each term. As immigrants, they were often seated next to others who were hated in their home countries. But, after listening to their experiences, many walls broke down, and new understandings were created. It was not uncommon that the two factions would hug.

Second, when someone tells me their truth about me, how they perceive me, I believe them although I may not always agree. It’s up to me to decide for myself without telling the other person they are wrong. They can have their experience of me separate from me. Yet, it is worth considering how that perception came to be. Did I stumble on a different cultural norm? Did I offend them in some way I’d not realized? Did I use language that holds a different meaning for them?

Wokeness is an ideal state that says we can see the humanity in another’s situation. The bootstraps analogy many talk about may be significantly different from another person’s. Some of us were born on third base and think we hit a triple. Others had to cross continents in hopes for a chance at the plate.

It is always possible to start your waking journey. Believe, consider the truth of what you hear, and remember that your experience will be different from the next person’s. The goal is not to be done but to continually expand our understanding of the world.

Some routes to waking include journaling, meditating, reading, asking questions, exploring different cultures, getting to know about new geographic regions, cultures, and traditions, and accepting yourself as a work in progress.

Mary