Full, Empty & the First Lady
A few weeks ago, I followed an email link to this speech by Michelle Obama, delivered on June 16th in Washington DC. It does a wonderful job at describing the spirit, orientation, and aim of what we at SCOPE care about and work to practice locally.
(Follow link and scroll down to the bold text.)
http://www.abcdinstitute.org/faculty/obama/
This part stood out for me:
“all of us, every single one of us breathing in this community, in this planet, those of us serving and those of us who are being served, [are] all both half-full and half-empty. We all have skills and talents that make us good friends, family members, workers, and leaders, and we also have needs and shortcomings that come along with those strengths. We can’t do well serving these communities…if we believe that we, the givers, are the only ones that are half-full, and that everybody we’re serving is half-empty. Communities are filled with assets that we need to better recognize and mobilize if we’re really going to make a difference”
I think that you can know a powerful philosophy or approach to doing things when, no matter how many times you return to its founding ideas, you see how much space you have to grow into actually practicing it as a human being throughout your day. The asset-based approach, for me, always keeps me humbled and growing.
When I read this and sit back to think about my work, it’s easy for me to pick through how much space my community has to grow to really understand the heart of this approach. I don’t see a broad awareness of how disempowering it is to simply “serve” someone, creating a relationship that places greater priority upon one-way giving from “giver” to “needy” than upon learning about and finding a way to draw upon the “full” half of the recipient. On the other end, I also see how people in client or citizen roles default into consumers of services rather than spending time thinking with others about what they can do as producers of the kind of change they want to see.
How can I better help the people I work with in community to grasp the simple efficiency of this approach-of focusing on assets, gifts, talents, and opportunities for connecting them to realize shared goals?
One thing I can do is to expose myself to stories of what great things happen when people choose to think and act like this. At the same time, I think I also must take the First Lady’s words to heart that my work will not be effective “if we believe that we, the givers, are the only ones that are half-full, and that everybody we’re serving is half-empty.”
Instead of spending so much time and energy worrying about how to impart my knowledge of this way of doing things, this speech reminds me that any good philosophy is about the walk, not the talk. That is, I want to challenge myself to replace my “do-gooder” illusion that others are “emptier” than me with a constant preoccupation with what treasures of skill, talent, or vision is already alive in those I meet. What are their assets? How are they “full”? How can we best exchange our assets?
I’m interested in what others take away from this speech. What does it affirm for you? Where do you see space for growth, in yourself or your community?
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I really like the idea mentioned above… doing good does give people a benefit that is entirely selfish (on some level), but most “do-gooders” also get a selfless benefit as well. I think the idea that both parties are receiving a benefit is very accurate. Maybe if we all see ourselves as learning humble lessons, we might actually learn the lessons we talk about!