"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
~ T.S. EliotIt seems to go without saying this yeas, as last, that as we look back, most of us will agree that 2013 was another year where conflict in all forms and varieties is a fabric of our daily existence. Whether we are instigators, willing participants, reluctant participants, or merely observers, we are all likely to see that we live in a conflicted society.
Last year's reflection sought to look away from a global analysis and inward, suggesting that we "choose kindness" in our interpersonal relationships in the coming year. Hopefully we have all had some success with that. We may have seen that kindness is not always an easy practice, therefore the title -- "It's Challenging, It's not Hopeless"
I take direction and inspiration this year from Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath, -- Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of battling Giants.
We all have likely viewed ourselves in a "David and Goliath" situation, either personally or professionally, especially as mediators where there are the ever present power imbalances. Or, are the imbalances the result of our perception rather than the reality? Are the perceived disadvantages real, or the result of not looking at the larger picture?
Gladwell does an excellent job of recounting instances of advantages that are really disadvantages, and the disadvantages of advantages ( from David, to school class size, to small stature of a basketball team, to dyslexia, to Londoners during the war, to blacks in the South, to Catholics in Belfast, to murder and the high cost of revenge), making a persuasive argument that not all difficulties are negatives. Many times, from these disadvantages spring important changes.
So may this mean for us in the coming year?
In all of our lives there are obstacles and difficulties. Some are faced with greater disadvantages than others, and I do not mean to minimize or marginalize that at all.
The "Challenge" is how to turn a disadvantage into an advantage in our personal lives and how to assist those with whom we work to do the same. We can choose to look at some of these circumstances as "desirable difficulties."
What are "desirable difficulties" ?
Opportunities.
Nothing more, nothing less.
We all have opportunities. What we choose to do with them is up to each of us. What seems to be universally true is that when things are harder, more difficult or more challenging, we work harder. let's not see the world and it's problems as hopeless.
For, we all have hope ----
In the words of Padraig O'Tuama
"hope to keep hoping"
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