I am afraid of Facebook. I’m a private person. I do have a rich inner life, but the idea of sharing what I think about with the world, well, that frequently scares me.
I wouldn’t be on Facebook if I didn’t have something to contribute.
I believe we need to remember stories of other women from the past. These stories tell us what’s possible for us. They tell us who we are and who we can become.
“Do one thing every day that scares you,” said Eleanor Roosevelt. Wife of a three-term president? What does she know about being scared?
In 1958, Roosevelt was scheduled to give a workshop in Tennessee on integration and civil disobedience. The FBI came to her and told her not to go. They told her that the Ku Klux Klan had put a bounty on her head. The amount was $25,000, a princely sum in those days.
Roosevelt went anyway. She flew into the Nashville airport and was met only by a 71-year old woman. No police, no Secret Service, no FBI. Just 74-year old Roosevelt and this woman, a mere three years younger than her.
They got into a car and placed a loaded gun between them on the front seat. They drove to the site of the workshop, through twisting mountain roads at night, never knowing if around the next curve a band of hooded Ku Klux Klan members were going to block their car and kill them.
They made it through.
When I think about this story, about the guts and determination that it took for Roosevelt to stand up to the Ku Klux Klan, it helps me to realize that standing up for what I believe in a public place like Facebook is doable.
So what if Facebook scares me. I’m following Roosevelt’s suggestion. I’m doing it every day.