“What is it that you are willing to live for, or maybe even die for?” Jacqueline Novogratz asked the 2016 Acumen Global Fellows at the end of a two day intensive Good Society Readings session. During the session, we had covered several readings on and by different leaders from Martin Luther King Junior’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail to an extract from Amin Maalouf’s book On Identity; from Muhammad Ali Jinnah Inaugural Speech to B. Wainaina’s How to write about Africa. We had taken a journey to understand leadership as it had been presented, lived and understood by different people from different walks of life.
As I answered, I was amazed at the calmness, not just in my voice but in my inner self, the clarity of mind on the work that lay ahead and the confidence that I would in the least try; “I am willing to live and die for the economic empowerment of the people of Africa, starting with Zimbabwe” I answered. I had made the choice before, but on this day it was clearer. I had made up my mind.
Only hours after this conversation, all that I had had before was gone — no calmness, I was in total panic; I was certainly no longer clear about my strategy and I had lost all confidence in my capability.
After spending some alone time reflecting on the discussions we had had over the previous two days, it dawned on me then that I was neither the first nor the last person to dream of changing the world. Many people had gone before me; many seemed to have failed but most had succeeded to simply nudge the world in one positive direction, before some other team came and swept it off in the opposite direction; at least so it seemed. There was certainly nothing different about me. I was yet another ignorant individual, full of passion and idealism. I had been sucked into the realm of thinking that I was special, and hence, I could change the world. I was “ignorant ” of the people that had gone before me; of the true challenges and even more of the true successes. On understanding this, I was most certain that my efforts would be “ripples in a world of waves”.
For many weeks after this session, I had no voice, hence the long period between blogs. There were no words to describe the engaging thoughts going on in my mind. Everyday had a routine, but I lived, breathed and dwelt there, in my mind, evaluating what I could or could not do, what I should or should not do, or what was worth the effort.
On the last day of the Fall Training, Acumen had the annual Partner Gathering event on which I had the honor to not only share my story but also listen to the different stories that walked in the room. Seeing all these people, and listening to their words got me believing again, that it could be done. The key however, was not in the “I” but in the ”We”. The key was also in doing your part, your best.
Part of the Acumen Manifesto states that, “It thrives on moral imagination — the humility to see the world as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be”. I needed to believe and live this truth. Acknowledging this truth meant finding my part to play; meant understanding the different roles and collaborating with the different people who could carry out these roles; it meant understanding that all things would go through time and that eventually no effort would ever go to waste. I was not going to change the world alone; my ripples, your ripples and your neighbor’s ripples could together create a wave that could change an entire landscape. It takes only a nudge to send a big rock toppling off a very high cliff.
These days I lose my voice all the time, but find it. It is a constant battle with self, to keep the work at the center and the end in mind, through the challenges that await us day by day.
