“But knowing that things could be worse should not stop us from trying to make them better.” Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In, p. 5
“It could always be worse” has never been a salve for my soul. Knowing that someone is suffering more than I am doesn’t make me feel better. It usually makes me feel worse. The #firstworldproblems meme meant to be a bit cheeky, snarky and thoughtful (?) makes me think I spend too much time online and not enough time actually trying to change the things I can change.
There are the little things, the personal things I can change. Turn that frown upside down. Go to bed at a decent time. Walk to the library. Recycle. Reuse. Compost. Garden.
But what are the things that require a bit more heavy lifting? Sandberg’s book has gotten me thinking about leadership and the many venues in which a woman’s leadership can play out. Where do we see the problems and then choose to make the effort to make them better? Certainly women choosing to lead doesn’t just mean pregnant women get special parking (though that would’ve been great when I was pregnant with my first child), right?
In my evangelical faith circles, I have to dance this complex dance of affirming God’s will, working within cultural and organizational boundaries/rules/expectations, being encouraging as well as challenging, blessing others to make choices I would never make, asking for the blessing for choices I make that others would never make, and making sure it is all done in prayer, reflection, community, and humility. Sandberg hints at and takes some shots at complexity because she chooses to bring her gender and life stage into play, but in the end many of the solutions are appropriately business-like – cut and dry, you will either choose to lean in or not. After all of the late night conversations over tears and tissues with girlfriends and female colleagues about the challenges of leading while wearing a bra, I appreciate reading a woman’s voice telling me “we can dismantle the hurdles in ourselves today” (p. 9).
So, who are the women who are making things better? Who are the women you all look at examples of this?
I can think of several. Nikki Toyama-Szeto. Joanna Lee. Janet Cho. Jessica Lynn Gimeno. They are just some of the women I look to because they are doing more than laughing over #firstworldproblems and living out Jesus’ prayer in their spheres of influence: Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.