2-3-4 Friday

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

Old Fox is a movie you might want to watch.

It talks about how a young boy, growing up in low income circumstances, happens to meet his wealthy landlord. Over the months, this landlord teaches him how to ‘win’ in this world.

It’s a classic Count of Monte Cristo story, where someone, downtrodden on his luck, meets a benefactor.

But something in this movie caught my eye.

It spoke about how inequality is a map about how we can operate.

Inequality is a map, we often treat it as the point we need to eradicate.

As social workers, or people working within the social service space, we do possess some sort of anger and frustration towards the inequality we see present in many contexts.

That might be why we initially joined the sector. Because we want to make change and we want to make things better.

But how do we help people born with a poor hand (whether it be because of their economic circumstances, etc.) have a higher probability of winning?

One way the movie talked about was how you should, and probably can, look at how those in power actually rise to those places of power.

The other way is to ally yourself with the places and people with power.

Growing up, we often say that it’s about your connections, or who you know. I really, really don’t think it’s just that.

But it’s the ability to seed a desire of change in those who have the power.

Because we can’t force them to suddenly be a social worker. But we can definitely convince them, with heartfelt story, that it’s worth giving to someone in need.

1 talk

Inequality is a map that shows us where we should play to get power,

So that we can eventually give it away.

1 tip

One of my favourite scenes in Old Fox comes through this.

The Wiley Old Fox sees the boy sympathising with his father’s situation and asks,

Do you know how we can stop sympathising with someone?

Step 1. Drink cold water.

Step 2. Close your eyes.

Step 3. Say, “None of my business. None of my business. None of my business!”

Sometimes, to be truly helpful, we need to close our eyes to need, and to remind ourselves that it might just be none of our business.

Seriously.

You can’t solve everyone’s problems. You will definitely have more problems the more you try to solve those of others.

If inequality is a map, how do we best use this map to serve our needs?

The world is unfair. The faster we realise that, the better.

Some choose to gripe and complain.

Others choose to face the reality of an imperfect world, and to pick their battles.

There is a great saying by Sun Zi in the Art of War,

Don’t win the battle but lose the war.

The people who last in the change business, are those who pick the battles they can win, and drop the battles they can’t.

The next time you want to fight something, ask,

even if I won this battle,

what good would it do in the long run?

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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