One of my favorite movies is Shawshank Redemption.

And one of my favorite scenes is near the end when Andy Dufresne escapes the prison, Morgan Freeman's voice narrates:

"Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of *poop* smelling foulness I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want to​. Five hundred yards... that's the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile . . . and came out clean on the other side."

We are all crawling through our own unique rivers of poop. Some are work-related. Some are personal. All are real and smelly. What I love most about the quote above is the challenge, the reminder, to endure these times of absolute *poop* in such a way that when it ends, we too can come out "clean on the other side."

And we do so by shouldering each other burdens, even when we are tired, stressed, and overwhelmed.

We do so by leaving our hardships and hurts at the door and loving our neighbors, students, and coworkers anyways.

We do so by leaning into hard conversations, with empathy and grace.

We do so by battling against the “survival mode” mentality of hardship, by denying the lure of complacency, and by refusing to allow our circumstances to dictate who we are and what we do.

I know this is easier said than done, but if it is never said, it is rarely done. And I want it to get done.

That’s what I’ve been thinking about this week.

Happy Friday!

#doGREATthings!

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