Real Epiphanies…
Some thoughts do change the world!
“Sustainability” is often bandied about as if it were a banner for a new age, but few of us spend enough time with the term to truly come to terms with what it actually means. Fortunately, I had three years to get up close and personal with the term while I served as an AmeriCorps*VISTA and, later, a VISTA Leader. In our Pre-Service Orientation and Early Service Training, they drilled home the idea that, for our projects to be sustainable, they needed to be owned by the communities we served instead of by ourselves. Only then would those projects have a ghost of a chance of living on after our terms of servicce were completed, of actually changing people’s individual worlds and this small planet we all call home…
Fast forward to today- by virtue of being out of work (not by choice, mind you!), I had a moment to reflect on that sense of duty and service that I still carry with me and wonder how we can change this world that still sees, and has seen for as long as we have been here as a species, so much pain, suffering, disaster, and heartache. For years, I’ve struggled with trying to figure out how best to do that, and for just as many years, I’ve gotten nowhere on that problem. Thanks to the community here at Medium and some papers I read in one of my PhD classes, I finally got a couple of glimpses of a better way to change the world, and recent events have helped me to bring that into clearer focus, resulting in this collection as well as this post.
Here’s the secret…!
The mistake I was making was a typical one, a learned response acquired in childhood by observing the world around me. In every major disaster, orgganizations from governments to non-profits come in and try to fix the problem, and they can certainly help… however, they can’t fix it, because they eventually go home and whatever structural problems remain, whether they be philosophical, environmental, political, economic, emotional, physical, or social. If those organizations have deep enough resources, they may go a long way towards fixing those problems, but, like modern allopathic medicine, it’s expensive and time consuming to keep that up for long.
Ultimately, if change is to be sustained, the community needs to pick up the mantle. They’re the ones with the most to lose and the most to gain; they’re the ones who are always there, 24x7, and the ones who know the issues as well as they know their own names. They may need help getting to the point where they realize that they are their own solution, and they may need resources to get back to a sustainable condition in this world of degraded ecosystems and damaged psyches, but the fact remains that they need to own the work if the work is to endure, and they need to pass on that sense of ownership and obligation to those who come after.
The second part of the solution is you.
None of us is an expert at everything, or even most things. All of us have our specialties, our areas where we shine. We each need to find that area and contribute that thing that is most ours, that area where we can contribute what few others, if anyone, can.
We need to find our niche and own it!
That’s what I’ve been missing for so many years, and that’s what I’ve seen over and over again since I started being active here on Medium; so many talented, creative, and passionate people trying to find ways to do what they love, to make a difference, to touch lives, or just to get the word out there in the world. That’s what we need- we need to crowd-source change and take advantage of all the power and creativity and passion and ability that the world possesses in order to address whatever problems may arise.
Whether we like it or not, we are all truly in this together, and we have the great fortune to live at a time where technology gives us the ability to work together to change the world, to get behind and push where someone’s idea is better than our own and to lead in the areas where we have insight.
That’s what this message and the collection I started is really about- rather than me changing the world, I wanted to provide a place where the good work that all of you are already doing can inspire us all and give us a place to find new efforts to contribute our talents to.
I don’t know where the journey will go from here, but I do hope that you’ll join me in finding out…
