Steven LaChance Blog

If you live in this world long enough, you are going to live through some type of instability. I know I have. I could list them out. Hate crimes. Civil unrest. Moments that remind you how quickly things can shift.

I remember Ferguson. I remember fire trucks parked across streets like makeshift barricades. I remember the tension in the air. Not panic. Not chaos. Tension. The feeling that something fragile had cracked and no one quite knew what would happen next.

And I remember something else.

Life kept going.

People still went to work. Kids still went to school. Groceries still needed to be bought. The world did not end, even though for a few days it felt like it might tilt off its axis.

That is the part people forget.

We act as though instability is foreign. As though unrest belongs to other cities, other countries, other cultures. We watch footage on our phones and talk about “over there,” wherever over there happens to be this week.

But there is no over there.

Minneapolis. Ferguson. Uvalde. Las Vegas. New York. Los Angeles. Rural towns with one blinking stoplight. Violence has visited all of them. In the United States, our children rehearse what to do if someone comes into their classroom with a gun. We have normalized the unthinkable.

Let that sit for a moment.

We train eight year olds how to hide.

So when people speak about instability in another place as if it proves some moral or geographic superiority, I pause. Because safety is not a passport. It is not a zip code. It is not a flag.

It is a temporary condition.

The truth is none of us are completely safe. Not in Mexico. Not in Missouri. Not anywhere. We can make wise choices. We can stay informed. We can prepare. But we cannot build a life around the illusion that danger only happens to other people.

The boogeyman is not a foreign concept. It is simply uncertainty with a face we have not seen yet.

And here is the harder truth.

If you build your identity around the idea that you are safer, better, more protected than someone else, what you are really clinging to is denial. The world is unpredictable. Always has been. Always will be.

So what do we do with that?

We live anyway.

We stay aware without becoming consumed. We prepare without surrendering to paranoia. We love our families. We build homes. We show up for our communities. We refuse to let fear become our personality.

Because while none of us are guaranteed safety, we are guaranteed this moment.

And I would rather spend mine building something meaningful than pretending the walls are thicker where I stand.

Instability is not a sign that the world is ending. It is a reminder that the world has always been fragile.

The real question is not “Where is it happening?”

The real question is, “How do I choose to live in a world where it can happen anywhere?”

For me, the answer has always been the same.

Eyes open. Heart steady. Fear acknowledged, but not obeyed.