Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the balance between joy, comfort, and privilege.
My three months on exchange in the UK were honestly some of the best days of my life. I enjoyed school, travelled around Europe, ate lots of good food, made new friends, caught up with old ones. It was truly the happiest I’d felt in ages. Excerpt from one of my journal entries: ‘Not throwing myself into activism here freed up so much time for me to just hang out, live life, and BE A YOUNG PERSON. it was lovely! to not have my schedule filled all the time.’
Since 2018—when I first started my environmental journey—climate advocacy has taken up a huge chunk of my time. Volunteering with NGOs, running campaigns, taking part in negotiations… a lot of that work was (is) driven by eco anxiety, but mostly, it was underpinned by an unhealthy attachment of my identity to the climate space. It felt wrong if I wasn’t actively doing something related—so juggling school and advocacy became the norm.
At Oxford, I finally began to grow into an identity outside of activism. But there was something so uneasy about it… about how easy it was to tune out things happening elsewhere in the world–not least the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Amidst studying and hanging out with friends, I attended a couple of Palestine solidarity marches and reposted things on my Instagram story, but not much beyond that. Honestly, I completely understand why people sometimes call protests performative because that’s how I felt. I showed up because it made me feel better. Made me feel like I was ‘at least’ doing something—when really, I was barely scratching the surface.
Of course it’s okay to rest. But at what point does disengaging come from a place of privilege? When is ‘rest’ is no longer just about recharging, but rather a choice to be complicit in injustice; to turn away and decide it’s okay not to do more because it doesn’t really impact you anyway?
Yesterday I saw this post that said we don’t have the right to be exhausted while people are being massacred —
Source: @decolonize_the_classroom / Instagram
As much as the gravity of Gaza resonated, I found myself disagreeing with the post. There are real, finite limits to everyone’s mental bandwidth, and I don’t think it’s healthy to expect people to pour from an empty cup.
It is difficult to resist despair in an exhausted state. When we protect our rest, we protect our dreaming. (Cole Arthur Riley)
That’s why the emphasis on collective action is SO crucial: so that individuals can take a step back when we need and return when we are ready–and trust that others will keep the fight going in the meantime.
The key word here, I think, is return. It’s okay to rest and have fun even in the midst of tragedy–as long as we come back. In fact, we owe it to ourselves to hold on to whatever bit of humanity we can. Hope, joy, love, friendship, laughter…
Ultimately, only you know whether your disengagement is coming from a place of apathy or a genuine need for rest. As for myself… honestly, at the end of last year, I reached a point of complete weariness in activism. Having to navigate tensions with authorities–both in Singapore and at Dartmouth–really wore me down mentally. My time in Europe this year showed me that finding fulfillment in climate justice work doesn’t always mean joy. I can find the work I do deeply meaningful and yet still need a break; still want more to life. I don’t want all I remember from my twenties to be running X number of climate workshops and attending Y number of COPs. I want to spend more time loving my friends, reading, being creative in the kitchen, and sitting with nature. Nor will I let myself be measured by how many posts I’ve read or written about Gaza–especially when I know I’m not engaging with the content authentically. I’m staying in my own lane until I can find that fire in myself again.
Maybe I’m being selfish and trying to justify my privilege… if so, I trust my friends–and whoever else is reading this—to hold me accountable. But as I head into a new school term at Dartmouth tomorrow, I’m choosing to slow down on my activism. Stepping back doesn’t mean that I care less about the work I do—if anything it means I care more, because I’m more intentional about each commitment rather than saying yes to everything. If I am in this for the long haul then this term I want to pursue my joy and prioritise acting out of love and empathy, over and over again.
Kate Yeo 
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