
Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
In the spirit of CAE’s mission towards collaboration, today’s ideas come from two unlikely sources. Paul Farmer — founding member of Partners in Health, and Alice in Wonderland.
When trying to solve social issues, it often feels like we are trying to achieve the impossible. Sometimes we hear this from dissenting outsiders, and sometimes it comes from our own internal dialogue.
Consider Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners In Health. They strive to give a the poor better options in health care by establishing long-term relationships in settings of poverty with two goals — to bring the benefits of modern medicine to those most in need of them and to serve as an antidote to despair.
In the midst of the amazing work they do, they still watch children die of preventable diseases. They have built elaborate health systems in some of the most under-resourced countries in the world only to see them fall to natural and unnatural disasters alike. They themselves have succumbed to the very diseases they have tried to rid the world of.
But they still show up.
Here’s Dr. Farmer’s take on it from the book Mountains Beyond Mountains:
“How about if I say, I have fought for my whole life a long defeat. How about that? How about if I said, “That’s all it adds up to is defeat? A long defeat.”
I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don’t dislike victory…You know, people from our background — like you, like me — we’re used to being on a victory team, and actually what we’re really trying to do is to make common cause with the losers. Those are two very different things. We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it’s not worth it. So you fight the long defeat.”
This is not an attempt to shame anyone who tries. We are not trying to say that if we only work harder, or sacrifice more, maybe we will succeed. We are saying that it’s okay to fail, because we were never expected to win.
Knowing that what we’re trying to accomplish is impossible, roots us in reality. Now that we’re free to lose, we are freed from the pressure of having to win. It allows us to focus on actionable steps we can take to get there, without beating ourselves up for not saving the world before bedtime.
It is not likely that we will see solutions to these enormous problems within our lifetime, but we can begin creating a roadmap for generations to come. These issues are not going to be solved over brunch. We are not going to change the political climate with a Facebook post. But if we have intelligent conversations with our elected officials, if we stand with those who feel alone, if we tell our stories and theirs, we are going to change lives.
Let your imaginations run wild. Be unreasonable. The way the world works doesn’t make sense — why should we have to? Figure out what you want the world to look like, and do one thing every day to advance it towards reality.
Our challenge to you is to acknowledge your impossible things. Be it six, or one, or twenty-five visions you have for a perfect world. It’s likely the ideas are already rolling around in there, but put them in writing. We will work together to find ways to help you advance towards your goals, and begin working on making them a reality.