MEETING POINT
ServiceSpace
--Jose Ramon
4 minute read
Jul 27, 2014

 

M. is a friend of mine who works for one of the biggest wheel producing companies in the world. He is the managing director of a factory with hundreds of people.

For me it’s such a gift to be connected to him. I learn a lot from his stories.

Most of my background is on Development studies, social movements and Non Profit management, but I always had an openness and willingness to listen to stories and connect to people from very different professional spaces.

M. has come to confirm what I already sensed. Many corporate bosses also have a big heart!!!!!!

For many years I have been practicing what we usually call activism, and thinking about what is the best way to change society for the better, for the common happiness… Many times I thought of the corporate world as the devil that we should demolish, the rival that is separating us from the goal… And as I saw them as a separated group I realized I was thereafter separated from them. In that separation I sensed that my task as a change maker was maybe compromised.

Gandhi used to talk about obstructive and constructive activism. I am not saying we have to forget about obstructive activism. We have some wonderful alive examples of its value nowadays. But, for me and in my reduced and limited experience, the presence of constructive activism is gaining much more strength.

If I find a corporate boss I realize I can try to throw myself to the fight and try to convince him of all the things that look clear to me. Albert Einstein said a very wise thing: “Being example is not one way of influencing others, it’s the only way.” Gandhi put it other way: “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. I think I am starting to get their message.

All the time, when I tried to convince someone I realized that, at the end, they were taking distance from me. They were running away to their own truths. Preaching was not really working.

But when I start to practice empathy and love with them, then distances melt. There is no more a big boss and an activist, there is no more a social worker and a business man, there is just a friend, there is just a couple of friends sharing openly and freely.

In essence we are radically similar. We all love family, friendship, joy, clean air, clean water, health, empathy, good food, nice relationships, art… Yet and luckily the same essence is manifested with wonderful diversity. Diversity in unity they say.

When I first met M., I again had the temptation of trying to convince him about my truths. But I held it in, and I just tried to be a sincere me, with no hidden intention. During our first conversations I was aware of some of my control thoughts, but I let them go and came back to pure listening, again and again.

Yesterday I felt so grateful and deeply moved when he started to share about his life.

A story of his hit me at the core. He has been working in Belgium, Russia, and now Spain. When he was in Russia he had hole in his large intestine that almost killed him. He was on his early forties and he saw his life at risk. He was in a town where the medical care didn’t seem reliable and he couldn’t travel to another place because the surgery was urgent and he could had trouble moving his body in such condition. Finally he got operation in a local hospital and everything went well but that moment made him think a lot about the stress and the kind of job that he had till that time.

When in current business, we are sometimes used to see others as customers, providers, consumers… And sometimes we have to take decisions that compromise the common good for the benefit of a reduced group. We have to mercantilize people, we have to see people as resources and that, somehow, hurts everyone, I want to believe. Probably there is no coincidence that in some business areas of the world there are the highest rates of stress, drug consumption and suicide cases.

During university M. was an holistic activist, he was part of protests against the government for universal health, he was the coordinator of a theater group and so on… Somehow after university he started to care more about hierarchy in the company, money or power…

It’s very nice to listen to an older man with such experience, talking about other forms of subtler capital. He sees very clearly now the true value of noble friendship, community, love, care, sympathetic joy or meaningful work.

I felt so grateful to M. for the opportunity to listen to his story, his openness, his sincerity and his friendship. We ended the conversation talking about how hopeful we feel with the appearance of a new kind of leaders, leaders that use their intellectual and social capital to support other’s journeys.

We shared on how beautiful is to see so many people like you around the world already building spaces of love, inside, outside, online. This new love based human activity, radically constructive and creative is generating the conditions for our best qualities to emerge.

I celebrate today Karmakitchen, the Soul Hospital, Casa de Paz, Aravind, DailyGood, Awakin, Manav Sadhna and so on… Social spaces of love that allow the best light of human KIND to shine.

YES WE ARE!!!!

I will keep trying to grow in love so one day I can see the beauty in all, beauty that I am starting to see more and more.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

 

Posted by Jose Ramon on Jul 27, 2014