Positive Work Attitudes
A couple of weeks ago I talked about some of the fatalistic attitude you will find here in Tanzania and honestly in much of the majority world. Want to make sure we are using terms the same here: Fatalism is the belief that what will happen has already been decided and cannot be changed from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fatalism. Basically accepting one's life situation as unchangeable. Majority World is a term coined to try to better describe the world in different terms from the first and third world philosophy but applies to those places in the world that are underdeveloped and often live in poorer conditions or in other words the majority of the world we live in.
Today I want to discuss a different view of the fatalistic attitude to a positive one. The best way to do this in terms of how they work. Every morning as I get ready for my day, I see a group of women walking out to the fields with their hoes and every evening they come back with a sack of onions on their head. They stop at our site and come in to share a cup we give them to go to the water well and each have a cup of water before continuing home. The days here are the hottest we have had and the sun is extremely bright each and every day making the work they do in the field oppressively hard, but they accept this as part of their life. This attitude is one that gets things done even when it is hard, hot and tiring work.
Success stories of getting things done are full of this type of attitude. I think back to the USA's Civilian Conservation Corp and how young men went to work on many projects prior to WWII in what were basically military camps and they did this kind of hard, hot and tiring work. But this was not a welfare program it was a work program. These man had to qualify based on family need for money and part of their pay went directly to their families. I imagine they had a feeling of fatalism about their lot in life. Things had spiraled out of control in the USA and they really had no other options to feed their families so they went out and did it.
I see that in these ladies and everybody here who works in the fields and the young boys and girls who drive their cattle to the watering hole or the 10 year old I saw working two bulls yoked to a large stump moving it down the road. While fatalism has many problems and can often drain hope, life and creativity from people it also gets the job done when there is no other way than to simply do it.
When I was in the military, an instructor at a school once told me the key to success is often putting one foot down in front of the other until you either collapse and die or you get where you are going. It turns out you almost always get where you are going.
What I enjoy is after seeing a group such as these women who have finished their days work and they sit around doing each other's hair and laugh and gossip. Their life is hard, as is 80% of Tanzanian's lives (most of the 20% may not have it hard by the definition of groups like the one I am using but harder than most of us with only a small percentage who lead comfortable lives by our standards) so they grab that small moment of joy and relaxation.
I imagine the cowboys of old sitting around a campfire after a hard cattle drive day and pulling pranks on each other, the men at the CCC camps taking any moment off to just remember they are feeding their families.
So not everything about fatalism is wrong. Yes it would be great to "work smarter not harder" but sometimes you just have to do the hard work.
I look at the people in my life I respect the most and I realize they are the types that when faced with a hard job don't complain, don't talk about how they don't have time, they figure out how to do and do it. They do the same thing when it is not always a hard job physically but a job that does not deliver glory or fame, requires extra time, is not fun to do, etc.... They simply do it.
Many times in non-profit groups and especially churches people take jobs that sound like they will be fun but when it comes to the doing of the job they often fall short because the tasks to get the job done are time consuming, not fun, background jobs. I am always most impressed by those that basically just shut up and do it.
A recent success story along these lines comes from my church. In July 2013? a fund was started to purchase a truck to serve the ministry here by acting as an ambulance in the valley, hauling supplies from town (medical, construction, pre-school) and many other needs. It did not start stellar, maybe $100. While I was raising funds to come here, somebody held a fundraiser dinner for me and it was decided to direct those funds to the truck and I did a breakfast with friends at church and we kicked it up to about $5000. Then I left to come to Tanzania and it has basically stayed there. In the last couple of weeks, members of my church, especially the Methodist Men and Action Class found out no one was leading so they stepped up and took it on. In those few weeks they have more than doubled our account. These are groups that did not whine about another project on their very full plates or all the fundraising they were already doing for other things. They simply did it. I am thankful I have groups like this joining me in the journey here in Tanzania. While it may not be a completely fatalistic attitude, they realize if they don't do it apparently no one will and so they did it. I want to say Thank you and Elephant (as big a thank you as I know) to them.
If you would like to contribute please contact me and I will direct you how to send money to the church for this needed ministry.
Recently our school teacher had both feet broken, we don't have an xray at the local clinic so she had to ride a motorcycle and then climb into the overcrowded buses where everyone crawls all over you to reach the hospital in Singida. This vehicle would have provided a much more comfortable ride for her to get there for treatment.
A young girl was burned very badly in the valley area. While I can't promise she would have survived if we had the ambulance, I certainly would have liked her odds a lot better had we been able to get her to a larger more equipped hospital quickly.
Today I want to discuss a different view of the fatalistic attitude to a positive one. The best way to do this in terms of how they work. Every morning as I get ready for my day, I see a group of women walking out to the fields with their hoes and every evening they come back with a sack of onions on their head. They stop at our site and come in to share a cup we give them to go to the water well and each have a cup of water before continuing home. The days here are the hottest we have had and the sun is extremely bright each and every day making the work they do in the field oppressively hard, but they accept this as part of their life. This attitude is one that gets things done even when it is hard, hot and tiring work.
Success stories of getting things done are full of this type of attitude. I think back to the USA's Civilian Conservation Corp and how young men went to work on many projects prior to WWII in what were basically military camps and they did this kind of hard, hot and tiring work. But this was not a welfare program it was a work program. These man had to qualify based on family need for money and part of their pay went directly to their families. I imagine they had a feeling of fatalism about their lot in life. Things had spiraled out of control in the USA and they really had no other options to feed their families so they went out and did it.
I see that in these ladies and everybody here who works in the fields and the young boys and girls who drive their cattle to the watering hole or the 10 year old I saw working two bulls yoked to a large stump moving it down the road. While fatalism has many problems and can often drain hope, life and creativity from people it also gets the job done when there is no other way than to simply do it.
When I was in the military, an instructor at a school once told me the key to success is often putting one foot down in front of the other until you either collapse and die or you get where you are going. It turns out you almost always get where you are going.
What I enjoy is after seeing a group such as these women who have finished their days work and they sit around doing each other's hair and laugh and gossip. Their life is hard, as is 80% of Tanzanian's lives (most of the 20% may not have it hard by the definition of groups like the one I am using but harder than most of us with only a small percentage who lead comfortable lives by our standards) so they grab that small moment of joy and relaxation.
I imagine the cowboys of old sitting around a campfire after a hard cattle drive day and pulling pranks on each other, the men at the CCC camps taking any moment off to just remember they are feeding their families.
So not everything about fatalism is wrong. Yes it would be great to "work smarter not harder" but sometimes you just have to do the hard work.
I look at the people in my life I respect the most and I realize they are the types that when faced with a hard job don't complain, don't talk about how they don't have time, they figure out how to do and do it. They do the same thing when it is not always a hard job physically but a job that does not deliver glory or fame, requires extra time, is not fun to do, etc.... They simply do it.
Many times in non-profit groups and especially churches people take jobs that sound like they will be fun but when it comes to the doing of the job they often fall short because the tasks to get the job done are time consuming, not fun, background jobs. I am always most impressed by those that basically just shut up and do it.
A recent success story along these lines comes from my church. In July 2013? a fund was started to purchase a truck to serve the ministry here by acting as an ambulance in the valley, hauling supplies from town (medical, construction, pre-school) and many other needs. It did not start stellar, maybe $100. While I was raising funds to come here, somebody held a fundraiser dinner for me and it was decided to direct those funds to the truck and I did a breakfast with friends at church and we kicked it up to about $5000. Then I left to come to Tanzania and it has basically stayed there. In the last couple of weeks, members of my church, especially the Methodist Men and Action Class found out no one was leading so they stepped up and took it on. In those few weeks they have more than doubled our account. These are groups that did not whine about another project on their very full plates or all the fundraising they were already doing for other things. They simply did it. I am thankful I have groups like this joining me in the journey here in Tanzania. While it may not be a completely fatalistic attitude, they realize if they don't do it apparently no one will and so they did it. I want to say Thank you and Elephant (as big a thank you as I know) to them.
If you would like to contribute please contact me and I will direct you how to send money to the church for this needed ministry.
Recently our school teacher had both feet broken, we don't have an xray at the local clinic so she had to ride a motorcycle and then climb into the overcrowded buses where everyone crawls all over you to reach the hospital in Singida. This vehicle would have provided a much more comfortable ride for her to get there for treatment.
A young girl was burned very badly in the valley area. While I can't promise she would have survived if we had the ambulance, I certainly would have liked her odds a lot better had we been able to get her to a larger more equipped hospital quickly.
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