Finding the Pony

As everyone knows by now, the purpose of this blog is to recount the weekly comings and goings of Triangle Leadership Academy, recommend pertinent readings, and generally share what's on the executive director's mind, all to help the Academy create its preferred future. I usually seek an optimistic tone in my writing. Today, not so much. But bear with me because there is a pony in this pile of manure.

Let's begin with some brutal facts. Anyone who tries to stay in shape through physical exercise knows that the body is masterful in its resistence to do or be anything other than what it already is. Biologists call it homeostasis; physicists call it inertia. Whatever you call it, it's tough to get traction for change in the course of the daily grind. If it seems like the laws of the universe are conspiring against you, they are.

But here's the pony-- stuff happens. In its worst form, it looks like a critical illness, a job terminated, a marriage voided, a move to a city where no one knows your name. In its less dramatic form, it feels like a sore neck, a new work role, a stupid argument with your spouse, an adult child whose job takes her a little further from your home. Not feeling like you want to find this pony yet, let alone ride him?

Well here is the good news: With little effort to do otherwise, when resilient people see the containing environment changing around them, they find themselves changing. Like the charred floor of a forest set ablaze, they have just been replenished hundreds of times over with the very substance from which life itself emerged. They survive. They adapt. And although none of them would have knowingly sought life's lemons, they mindfully and strategically use them to do something they have wanted to do all along.  

At TLA, we do not know quite yet what that something is. But we do see the lemons. Until we begin collecting member dues again and garner additional revenue streams, we are proceeding into the great unknown sustained only by yesterday's money. But I am happy to report that we are keeping the dream alive. Meanwhile, let's keep digging. The pony is down there.