Photo by Dude Crush

Every day you begin again. We must remember this. All that I know is I’m breathing.

My blogging has been on hiatus, but my life is steadily corralling itself around what really matters. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of moving from Northern Virginia to Howard County, Maryland where I have a porch now for the first time since I was a little girl and people actually speak when they pass you on the street. Last week I completed the Middle Management Program at Columbia Business School and spent an hour on graduation day vibing with Darwin Davis, President/CEO of the New York Urban League. Darwin was one of the advisors for the program and has an incredible history of leadership in nonprofits serving people of color. He spoke to me about the importance of having integrity in the work you choose to do for the cause. You don’t work at a nonprofit for the paycheck. But you also don’t have to work at a nonprofit to effect social change. You should be striving to be a servant-leader in whatever the work you so choose. Just make it mean something. So what you went and got a Master’s degree. What will you do with it to help others?

I thought of Darwin as I gave my remarks to the Capitol Hill Rotaract Club. I told them why I work in the nonprofit sector. I said that if you really care about something, if you feel really strongly that something in the world needs changing, that you have got to be the one to step up and do something about it. I shared my favorite quote from poet Carl Sandburg: “I’m an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.” I said that at the beginning of my talk as I was thinking of all the people that ask me how I came to this place. How did I choose to go and do the work of social change for a living? Because sometimes I look around, and wonder right along with them. So sometimes I have to remind myself when I feel like I don’t really know what the hell I’m doing. So I’ve been grateful for the time I’ve been taking to figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life. And if it’s the wrong thing, I don’t wanna be right. Because right now I’m excited to be doing some of the smartest things I can do:

• Working with a small nonprofit board teaching them how to ask for donations
• Talking about emerging leadership as the keynote speaker for the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers’ Annual Meeting in April
• Talking about Generation Y in the sector at the Georgia Nonprofit Summit in May

Every day I ask myself, what’s the most important way for me to contribute today? And often there are a thousand ways. That’s when I do need to fall off for a hot minute when life grabs my collar too close, when people ask me to do much more than my tiny brain can take. So then I stop to catch my breath and get back right side up in the name of this crazy thing called humanity. Thankfully, I gave myself this weekend for renewal and I had the pleasure of falling in love with Ingrid Michaelson’s beautiful voice. In “Keep Breathing,” she says:

All that I know is I’m breathing
All I can do is keep breathing
All we can do is keep breathing now

So I’m breathing a little better now. And feeling a little closer to being the change I wish to see. Anyone else making progress in their personal missions?

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