It’s November 2016, and I’m in Reykjavik, Iceland, watching the U.S. election results. My then-partner and I are cozied up in a small cottage, awaiting the outcome. As the night stretches into the early morning hours, we watch Donald Trump decisively win the election. Like millions of others, I felt a deep anxiety about what his presidency would mean — not just his policies but his rhetoric and style. Raised in the rural South, I grew up on values of respect, kindness, and decorum, yet here I was, watching a brash New York real estate mogul ascend to the presidency, leaving me with a sense of being part of a moral minority.

I accepted the election, but I struggled to accept how much we’d lowered our standards for public office, especially for the presidency. Since the advent of TV, we have selected our leaders based on media personas, choosing candidates who are “likable” or “just like us” over those with policy expertise, credentials, or experience. The danger is that the president isn’t just a figurehead. What the president says resonates globally, inspiring people, stirring nations to war, or even inciting harm because we grant them moral authority over our lives. I now understand how civility and kindness can be sidelined when people’s social and economic conditions demand drastic changes.

However, in this election, I’ve embraced a fundamental truth I didn’t fully grasp in 2016: no one can steal your inner light.

Regardless of who holds office, making life worth living is our lifelong vocation. We cannot take a break from our lives and expect others to carry our meaning for us. Though administrations may support or hinder, we are the ones who must choose to bring hope with us in the future. Resiliency doesn’t mean ignoring or conceding to despair in times like these. It means we do three things: 1) we contemplate our lives to find our moral compass again, 2) we build a community for protection and care, and 3) we lean into creativity, play, and joy as vital lifelines because they root us in a relationship with life that is satisfying and fulfilling, keeping the shadows of fear and uncertainty from overwhelming us. Imagination allows us to envision and shape new possibilities even in darkness.

Trump isn’t responsible for the darkness in American life — it’s been decades in the making — but he knows how to shine a spotlight on it. If elections teach us anything, it is that we don’t wait for outcomes to find our light; we keep the light burning because it is the source of our survival. In the coming weeks and months, our fears will be rekindled, and we may be encouraged to fight one another. I encourage each of us, regardless of who we voted for, to choose joy instead: reaffirm our hobbies, our simple pleasures, our favorite things, and places as ways to become the light so we may see that the light has never been afraid of the dark. It comes alive in the dark.

I am reminded of an African American spiritual once sung by people fighting for freedom:

“This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.

Let it shine!

Let it shine!

Let it shine!”

If ever you needed an excuse to let your light shine, then the darkness awaits your illumination.

Holloway is the founder of Conversations by Courage, a consulting practice dedicated to connecting ideas, sectors, and communities for collective well-being. He lives in San Diego.