Underground Good is an Opinion column that offers a window into the inspirations, habits, and mindsets of ordinary people whose actions are changing our community for the better . . . in hopes of inspiring more good.
I often urge my clients to see beyond good and bad to what “works.” What works is to love. It doesn’t work to hate. What works is to care for one another, and seek to understand one another and find common ground. It doesn’t work to hate one another and hurt one another.
"People with severe limitations and obstacles in their lives, with hardships and pain, have as much to teach and to give the world as people with signs of success. In some ways, the people who persevere in those kinds of circumstances teach us the most important things about, love, perseverance, and courage. There are no prerequisites to being a loving person."
"At the heart of why I do what I do is my mom. She was 14 when she had me and she got no services. She tried to ask for help, but she was underserved and later got arrested for stealing food. She was put in a juvenile detention center and then she had me. I would say for the first 10 years of my life, we slept on couches. I remember falling asleep in my mom's VW Bug and counting all the little holes in the fabric of the roof, just like I was counting sheep. I was cold, I was hungry, and it was hard on my mother to hear her children cry."
I love people. I even love the people that don't love me back—the haters, the folks that would rather we were all dead, to be honest. They're human beings, too, and I hold no malice against them. I think they're just misinformed and misdirected. People are afraid of what they don't understand."
We're committed to shining a light on GOOD in Shasta County. But how will we define what's good? Brisolara responds to a reader question with the framework by which she'll be evaluating diverse community actions as she interviews those doing Underground Good.
Local program evaluator, educator, writer, and resilience & equity coach Sharon Brisolara introduces a new monthly column focused on providing a window into the mindsets and worldviews of the unseen, ordinary people who are doing good in Shasta County.
