Recently, I suffered a poignant and painful lesson from a friend on the old “Intent vs. Impact” dilemma. Here’s the thing, your intent really doesn’t matter at all. Your intent is part of an internal narrative that you have to make the facts fit a story in which you are the hero. What matters is what happens out there in the real world because of what you say or do. It’s sobering and hard to realize that you’ve done wrong when you didn’t intend it. The thing is I have to learn and be better, not justify and equivocate (which is the instinctual thing to do: “But but but…”).
We all could use a reminder of “Impact over Intent”, both in our personal lives and as we participate in the greater societal narrative.
When we express ourselves about demonstrations, violence, the Black Lives Matters movement, the police, the role of government and free speech in our democracy – we must apply this “Impact over Intent” metric. Your Intent may be to express sympathy for the oppressed or to support the idea of free speech but what is the Impact of the actual words you use or actions you take?
Or, more challenging, the lack of words you use or the lack of action?
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