Guide Stars Lessons: The Art of Steering Through Change
The adrenaline has worn off. The signs will soon come down, and we are left with the Monday morning reality of our country. The event is over; the process remains. We have to go back to the drawing board to sketch what comes next.
I have written before about a “Great National Project,” the idea that this country requires every single hand to get the job done. That wasn’t just a slogan for a season; it is the reality of our geography and our economy. We are small enough that every person counts, and large enough to contain multitudes of opinions.
We are stepping into a shift. Change is uncomfortable. It interrupts our routines. But I am eager to see what this shift brings, because I have learned a hard lesson in my time on earth: uncertainty isn’t the enemy. The panic we feel when we don’t control the outcome is just a reminder to stay present. We cannot be “outer-directed” people, whose peace of mind depends entirely on external events going our way. The things we want (prosperity, safety, freedom) are within reach, but only if we walk toward them ourselves.
There is a specific concept in professional racing that explains our current moment perfectly. It’s called Target Fixation.
When a driver is moving at high speed and loses control, maybe they get clipped, maybe they hit oil, the car starts to slide. In that split second of terror, the brain screams at the driver to look at the wall they are about to hit. But race car drivers are trained to fight that instinct. They know a biological fact: your hands will steer the car where your eyes are looking.
If you stare at the wall, you will hit the wall. It is inevitable.
But if you force your eyes away from the crash and lock them onto the open track (the escape route) your hands will automatically make the micro-adjustments to steer you through. You might clip the grass, you might dent the fender, but you will survive the corner.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines is the car. We are the passengers. If we spend the next cycle staring at the wall (obsessing over grievances, predicting failure, or waiting for a crash) we will subconsciously steer our country into the ground. We have to look at the road. We have to look at the destination.
History often offers us a guide in the form of an old archetype, a story that civilizations tell themselves, about a figure the people looked to for salvation. They projected all their hopes onto a single avatar, waiting for a signal to improve their lives. But the depth of the lesson lies in the inversion: the leader is never the source of the magic; the leader is merely the focal point that allows the people to organize themselves. The figure they waited for became the embodiment of change only because the people eventually realized that they were the engine.
I write this to shield our collective vision from the myopia of bias. As a Vincentian, my allegiance is to the soil and the soul of this country. I cannot be at odds with a person who holds a different vision, for that difference is not an attack; it is simply parallax (viewing the same object from a different angle). We may disagree on the finer points, but we must never sever the tether to the bigger picture: the well-being of our people.
To those who feel the sting of disappointment: allow that feeling to calcify into resolve. Go to your work with a renewed, almost aggressive vision to push this country forward. Your scrutiny is necessary; it is the iron that sharpens the iron.
And to those who are celebrating: understand that the party is the prelude, not the conclusion. This is where the heavy lifting begins.
We will navigate the uncertainties together, not because it is easy, but because the alternative is to stare at the wall. And I, for one, intend to keep my eyes on the road.