New book alert. Impact: Six Patterns to Spread Your Social Innovation by Al Etmanski. Al has done some phenomenal work and been a part of system-level national change for people with disabilities with his organization PLAN (Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network). I'm loving every moment so far. Talking about his writing though will be for next week. Right now I'm just focusing on the amazing foreword and prologue written by others as a setup for the book.
The foreword was written by Severn Cullis-Suzuki. She is an environmental advocate for individual responsibility and making decisions with the future in mind. For that reason, parts of her foreword were focused on her children who live with her on Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands). I was struck by one particular line. She says her children were born with the privilege and responsibility of being Haida. We've all been born with privilege and responsibility from a number of communities. Do we go about our life thinking about this and acting in accordance with it?
I feel very privileged to have been born a Newfoundlander and Labradorean. The place and culture has given me the foundation and roots that I draw from everyday. It's nickname is the rock and it really is mine. I'm still figuring out the responsibility portion. I had a lot of guilt around that when I moved to Calgary. Somehow I felt like I had shirked it. I'm starting to realize that I can still live that responsibility away from my rock. I knew this in my head, but it's taken my heart longer to catch up to this. I also feel the path is getting clearer. The exploring I've been doing away is helping me make sense of how I can still fulfill my responsibility, whether I physically live there or not.
Being a Force for Good 