In the past couple of days I’ve been thinking hard about the kind of people we choose to elevate as leaders, influencers, or “truth tellers.” Not just in politics but in every sphere where public words can either heal or harm.
Too many public voices today frame compassion as weakness, diversity as tokenism, facts as optional, and even the loss of innocent lives as an acceptable “price” for certain rights. I believe the opposite. The people I admire, the ones I consider heroes, hold empathy at the core of their being. They see diversity as strength, facts as non-negotiable, and human life as sacred, never expendable.
I want to live in a world where you step onto an airplane and feel equally safe and confident regardless of the pilot’s skin colour, accent, or gender, because skill has no ethnicity, safety has no gender, and professionalism speaks louder than prejudice. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who landed his disabled Airbus safely on the Hudson River, once said: “The airplane doesn’t know what colour the pilot is.” Exactly. I want to live in a world where women can choose not to marry or not to have children, and be respected, and where men can be stay-at-home parents without ridicule. A world where family roles aren’t assigned at birth but chosen freely, and where dignity is not tied to traditional stereotypes. I want to live in a world where people can live openly as their authentic selves, where sexual orientation and gender identity are not hidden but celebrated, and where the younger generation of my friends can stand proudly in who they are without fear of losing jobs, housing, or community. Seeing that shift in my own lifetime gives me hope. I want to live in a world where rights are designed to protect life, not to justify its loss. Some public voices say a few gun deaths each year are a fair trade for broad gun rights. I believe human life is sacred, not expendable. We should ask harder questions about public safety before more families grieve. I want to live in a world where faith inspires compassion rather than control, where no religion claims to own morality, and where power is used to serve, not dominate.
These aren’t radical ideas. They’re the opposite of cynicism. They’re what empathy looks like applied to real life. Some people demand admiration while building a smaller, crueler world; my admiration goes to those building a larger, kinder one.
And it’s not soft. It’s not weakness. It’s discipline. It’s courage. And it’s at the heart of every real social advance we’ve made. Think of how far we’ve come in just a few generations: Women winning the right to vote and control their own destinies, families reshaping roles so a man can be a stay-at-home parent without ridicule, people able to love who they love without government interference, that we can break down barriers so that talent and skill, not gender or race, open doors in workplaces, classrooms, and cockpits alike.
We can still debate. We should debate. A healthy democracy thrives on disagreement. But when debate becomes dehumanization, and dehumanization becomes policy, the social fabric tears. We start seeing each other as enemies instead of neighbours.
This reflection didn’t come out of nowhere. It comes from watching, in real time, how easily cruelty and mockery can be rewarded, how words thrown around on talk shows, podcasts, or social media aren’t just noise but can shape real-world violence. Vitriol may seem like entertainment, but it sets the conditions for tragedy.
We can disagree without dehumanizing. We can argue policy without promoting ideologies that harm. Because not every idea is just “different”, some ideas are designed to strip rights, erase people’s dignity, and make violence seem inevitable. We have to name that and refuse to amplify it.
So what I want to lift up right now is not tragedy, not outrage, but the strength of empathy, authenticity, and courage, the quiet revolution of people living their values and moving us forward without violence and without stripping others of their humanity.
Because words matter. Ideologies matter. They can take lives or they can save them. And if we don’t hold leaders, influencers, and ourselves to that standard, we’re not just pausing progress, we’re rolling it back. I will always choose to honour people who build a compassionate world, not those who promote division. Yes, I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few days…
Nancy's Notes 