What's Your Word?

I was at a lunch table the other day and we were asked to pick a word that described what the non-profit community could expect in the next year. You could almost see the wheels spinning inside our heads because those types of set-ups usually has everyone trying to think of the most creative or positive word to describe their situation (whether they just got a million dollar grant or they're hovering on the edge of bankruptcy) but one of the people at the table said, "revolution." It's an interesting concept and one that I absolutely love for a variety of reasons. Mainly I think it's the power inherent behind the word. It's like the word "holocaust." Once someone puts that word out there, it's hard to put it back and everyone else definitely has something to say about it so we tend to use those kinds of words either very willy nilly (in an effort to disempower them) or very carefully.

I like the word revolution because I spent a lot of time in the nonviolence community and it's a word that frames certain forms of action. It was a very powerful moment for me to realize that a small group of people could build social change if they all believed in and acted upon the same thing. It's a two way street too, the people who don't share my views can also create change. But lots of us in non-profits spend our entire careers just working to stem the tide. We don't think of ourselves as powerful...after all, we are often more subject to the vagaries of money and funding so why rock the boat and put all our hard work at risk? Our jobs become more about protecting ourselves and our programs than about standing up...but Rome is burning people!

So "revolution" is a perfect word to describe what we want to do and how we get there...no fear! As a friend of mine said last week, "We all die," and we do and so do we want to come to the end of our life without fighting for something?

"Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can pick it up." Hannah Arendt

I know what power looks like.

History

History shows me what came before and helps me determine what I will do in the future. When you start a new organization, there isn't a history other than your previous experience. But we're now in the business of creating our own history so while I can look to my experiences and use them to build this new thing, I can't use them to determine what the outcome in this particular situation will be...and it's frustrating. When one week is spectacular, we're packed, the place is humming and hopping and the following week is slow...I don't know, is it the weather? Is it a review? Is it the stock market?

Next year, I'll be able to look back at this year and say to myself, "well, it was a holiday weekend or we had 10 feet of snow (don't even get me started on the plowing!)" but this year, I'm flying blind. How do you plan for that? KL tells me to relax and he's not the only one to give me that advice but there are people relying on this to work...staff, apprentices, volunteers, the community and sometimes the pressure is so heavy. I want to be proactive and not reactive. I want to be able to make the right decisions at the right time for the right reasons. And I want the decisions to create the history that we've planned for and not blow up all the landmines along the way...because that's going to be painful.

I suppose I want to be able to know the future even though I know that's not possible. Don't all the self-help books say that you have to allow yourself to make the best choices that you can given the knowledge that you have in that moment? I don't actually read self-help books...perhaps it was an episode of Survivor or maybe a Tracy Chapman song.

So where does that leave me...should I work harder? Of course that is a given because I won't squander this opportunity but what is the answer here? Is it me, is it my choices, is it structural...is there even a solution that I can put in place to solve my dilemma? Gandhi said, "A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history." I have that but will it be enough? Maybe I'll leave it in Gandhi's hands for tonight.