The whisper comes from whatever it is inside me that gets angry when things are unfair, and thinks it’s possible to change things for the better. It’s what briefly hijacked my body to scream “HEY, FUCK YOU, LADY!” It’s the part of me that likes to help people, and can be hurt by them. It’s what makes me able to experience pleasure and fury—the exact part that went missing during my gray years of depression. It’s the idea that the world can be better. It’s the expectation that the world should be better.

I’d be a better employee without this little voice. If I hadn’t graduated from a good college, or had been born below the middle class, or had children very young, I’d probably have spent the last decade and a half struggling to sandpaper this troublemaking part of myself down to nothing.