I have discovered I am addicted. I can't decide what my addiction is but I am very aware that I am most definitely addicted.
I started doing aid work 13 months ago. I had no idea what I was getting into; I was just a wide eyed, naive, eager woman who wanted to make some sort of difference. 13 months later I feel a little less wide eyed and naive but every bit as eager as I was before...and maybe even more eager than before. I recently clicked on a link to a cool blog and ended up stumbling upon a website called chasing misery. Here is the excerpt that especially caught my eye:
"The name for the anthology comes from a conversation that the Head of the Editorial Team, Kelsey Hoppe, had while in Indonesia following the 2004 tsunami in which hundreds of thousands of people died and so many more lost their homes, families and livelihoods. After a long day, she was sitting on the roof of a house with a friend, tired, sad and thought ‘what a strange life this is, what a strange profession – ‘chasing human misery’ around the world as we go from one emergency response to the next." --http://www.chasingmisery.com/the-book/
That hit me because I do sometimes encounter feeling that way. I have been in the same place for my entire aid work career thus far but ever since we moved out of an emergency response I have felt that old familiar feeling of needing to move on. I think I may have been designed for disaster response. During an emergency response, everything is different. Agencies are forced to partner for the benefit of the beneficiaries, you do whatever it takes to get the job done, you learn as you go, qualifications don't matter as long as the job gets done, it's just more challenging and dare I say it, FUN. Once the emergency fades, politics get involved, people start showing off, qualifications are suddenly all that matter, and people put off doing the job no matter what for doing the job according to policies. It's not as fun.
The other night I met a colleague working for another agency and shared a summarized version of the above excerpt and asked him what he thought. He shared a fantastic point of view by telling me he didn't look at it as chasing misery but instead bringing hope. I love that. The reason it resonates is because I do believe that is closer to the truth. I don't feel a buzz because people are suffering, witnessing that part is difficult, I feel the buzz because I am able to do something about it. The aim is to give them some hope so they can have the strength to pick themselves up.
One thing I have learned over and over is that life is not fair. It simply is not. I may be addicted to responding to emergencies but maybe a better way to phrase that is I am addicted to bringing hope. The world would be amazing if everyone could find a similar addiction.
I started doing aid work 13 months ago. I had no idea what I was getting into; I was just a wide eyed, naive, eager woman who wanted to make some sort of difference. 13 months later I feel a little less wide eyed and naive but every bit as eager as I was before...and maybe even more eager than before. I recently clicked on a link to a cool blog and ended up stumbling upon a website called chasing misery. Here is the excerpt that especially caught my eye:
"The name for the anthology comes from a conversation that the Head of the Editorial Team, Kelsey Hoppe, had while in Indonesia following the 2004 tsunami in which hundreds of thousands of people died and so many more lost their homes, families and livelihoods. After a long day, she was sitting on the roof of a house with a friend, tired, sad and thought ‘what a strange life this is, what a strange profession – ‘chasing human misery’ around the world as we go from one emergency response to the next." --http://www.chasingmisery.com/the-book/
That hit me because I do sometimes encounter feeling that way. I have been in the same place for my entire aid work career thus far but ever since we moved out of an emergency response I have felt that old familiar feeling of needing to move on. I think I may have been designed for disaster response. During an emergency response, everything is different. Agencies are forced to partner for the benefit of the beneficiaries, you do whatever it takes to get the job done, you learn as you go, qualifications don't matter as long as the job gets done, it's just more challenging and dare I say it, FUN. Once the emergency fades, politics get involved, people start showing off, qualifications are suddenly all that matter, and people put off doing the job no matter what for doing the job according to policies. It's not as fun.
The other night I met a colleague working for another agency and shared a summarized version of the above excerpt and asked him what he thought. He shared a fantastic point of view by telling me he didn't look at it as chasing misery but instead bringing hope. I love that. The reason it resonates is because I do believe that is closer to the truth. I don't feel a buzz because people are suffering, witnessing that part is difficult, I feel the buzz because I am able to do something about it. The aim is to give them some hope so they can have the strength to pick themselves up.
One thing I have learned over and over is that life is not fair. It simply is not. I may be addicted to responding to emergencies but maybe a better way to phrase that is I am addicted to bringing hope. The world would be amazing if everyone could find a similar addiction.
