Swimming up the river?

This summer, I was in an Equity and Diversity workshop with Paul Gorski and he presented two options for us to consider.

1. We could save the Starfishes…. Meaning, once we saw a problem, we could work to solve it immediately.

The Starfish story is a very popular story. Basically, A young man is walking along the ocean and sees a beach on which thousands and thousands of starfish have washed ashore. Further along he sees an old man, walking slowly and stooping often, picking up one starfish after another and tossing each one gently into the ocean. “Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?,” he asks. “Because the sun is up and the tide is going out and if I don’t throw them further in they will die.” “But, old man, don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it! You can’t possibly save them all, you can’t even save one-tenth of them. In fact, even if you work all day, your efforts won’t make any difference at all.” The old man listened calmly and then bent down to pick up another starfish and threw it into the sea. “It made a difference to that one.” (source: http://www.esc16.net/users/0020/FACES/Starfish%20Story.pdf)

 

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2. We could swim up the river… Meaning, we could see the problems as they currently exist, and swim up the river to see what is the actual problem.

One summer in the village, the people in the town gathered for a picnic. As they leisurely shared food and conversation, someone noticed a baby in the river, struggling and crying. The baby was going to drown! Someone rushed to save the baby. Then, they noticed another screaming baby in the river, and they pulled that baby out. Soon, more babies were seen drowning in the river, and the townspeople were pulling them out as fast as they could. It took great effort, and they began to organize their activities in order to save the babies as they came down the river. As everyone else was busy in the rescue efforts to save the babies, two of the townspeople started to run away along the shore of the river. “Where are you going?” shouted one of the rescuers. “We need you here to help us save these babies!” “We are going upstream to stop whoever is throwing them in!”  (source: http://fasarizona.com/riverbabies.htm) 

 

What are you going to do? Are you willing to swim up the river or just wait on the shore? Choice is yours….

 

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2 thoughts on “Swimming up the river?

  1. There is merit in both methods of operation and I think you can’t use one over the other. The objective is massive change in ideology and sustainable success for the future generations which employs an all out assault of every tool available.

    • You are correct. I am always thinking of where the problem is established while I am also dealing with the day to day! Neither is easy work!

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