Sarah Beth Cloar, President, WWPR
Can anyone ever really prepare you for what the world has seen these past two months? The loss of loved ones, disconnected families, shuttered businesses, layoffs, and furloughs, financial uncertainty, and decline of mental and physical wellbeing.
It’s like a movie plot that has gone on far too long, with the twist not presenting itself soon enough.
Despite the immensely trying times, I try to look for the bright spots in each day. As a full-time working parent of an 18-month-old, I’m challenged to do this more days than I can count.
But when a fellow board member recently flagged to our group this amazing piece, Your Only Goal Is to Arrive, it hit home (a place I haven’t ventured from in a while). Comedian Paul Ollinger paints a beautiful metaphor of our sheltering in place with that of traveling via flight with a baby in tow. He says:
“Because our reality has changed, we also need to change the metrics by which we judge our success. If Satisfaction=Experience–Expectations, and much of the experience is out of our control, now is the time to make sure our expectations are realistic and achievable.”
While our organization and many like us, our employers, and businesses large and small have made adjustments to programming and services to be connection-reliant, contactless, curbside, and convenient, the experience has been improved. But the expectations are ours to own – and they require equal parts grace, optimism, and patience. So, in Paul’s scenario, we can “survive and arrive.” Forget about thriving, that’s for another day.
Thank you for staying aboard with us – we are here should you need a connection, a friend, a piece of advice. Reach out and let us know how things are going.