Why Am I Closing the Pakistan Changemakers Hub
Dear friends:
Thank you for having joined the Pakistan Changemakers Hub Facebook page, blog, and Google Group -- in great numbers, lately. Clearly, this is an indication that a need for change is felt. So, you may find it paradoxical that I have intended to close down this page, this project.
Why?
Because I no longer believe in this project. I think its direction is outwardly: on changing the exterior circumstances, the situation of the world, the given. I believe there was a time for that. This is not that time.
This is the time for absolutely dropping all fixing and manipulation and wishing and avoiding we humans are doing, and to immediately redress our inner situation. Which is to say, our 'software', our beliefs, our outlook, our minds.
If that is not fixed, nothing in the world is fixed. We are in times of increasing darkness, and we can face another 1000 years of such darkness if we do not decide to change ourselves.
There are two ways to achieve this:
1/ everyone gets out to fix the other. This is what is happening globally in many places, and most particularly in Pakistan. This is the route of violence, exhaustion, ineffectiveness, hurt, loss which looks like gain.
2/ each person reflects upon themselves -- finding what prejudices, flaws, and mental blocks they can remove from within themselves. This is the path of peace, harmony, effectiveness, achieving results, love, and gain which may temporarily look like loss.
When I started the Changemakers project, the definition of a changemaker in my mind was that of a person who has gone through this "inner cleansing" as it is called... and thereafter, they knew with which particular personal gift would they like to contribute to the world. I wanted to create a platform to identify, connect, and broadcast these changemakers.
What I am realizing, though, are several things:
1. A great number of people, especially in Pakistan, needs personal growth and development. They are far from being changemakers.
2. In such a situation, changemakers cannot thrive by exposing themselves to excessive neediness.
3. While people are undergoing personal growth, they need nurturing. Overwhelming them with exposure to problems that are beyond their scope means delaying their maturity. In other words, far more people need to focus on improving their own condition and making themselves useful, than to worry about problems at large.
4. The new frontier of the change is The Home. This is also precisely where the potential of many is blocked. Rather than fixing the world, people need to renegotiate personal contracts with their selves, family, and friends.
5. Too many people shouting about too many issues is an ineffective way for change -- or let's call it "evolution". What I observe is this: a few folks become heroes in the process, and many become zeroes. This is not the way to facilitate the evolution of this nation. Each person needs to take up their personal responsibility.
In sum, I believe the individuals need to stop looking for messiahs and create immediate shift in their own lives, their families, their neighborhoods, their work. For this, the work needs to be done closer home. Instead of looking for ways to make the world better, we ought to do the simpler but far more courageous work of making ourselves, our relationships, our offerings better.
Peace, and thank you for coming with us thus far!
.ramla
Founder,
Pakistan Changemakers Hub
~
Special thanks to:
Sawant Shah, for setting up the Changemakers directory. See: http://pch.sawantshah.com/
Ozair Rao, for listening to my endless iterations of the Changemakers idea
Asim Fayaz & Samuel Janis, for getting the word out; Sha Chaudhry for hosting the first meet-up
Fariha Akhtar, Habeeb Mengal, and other regulars at the Virtual Chopaals hosted by Pak Changemakers Hub who cheered PCH on
And everyone else who rooted for this idea, and for me. Thank you.
Posted by Ramla Akhtar
