The danger of “They”

Friday night I drove my son to Scout Camp. It was a long drive - an hour-and-a-half each way – into landscape I love. Wakefield, Quebec was approximately our halfway point. Kazabazua was where we turned off 105 and, as we went deeper and deeper into the hills and trees, the Kaz started to look like a metropolis by comparison.

It was a stunning night, with a near-full moon partially obscured by black-edged clouds and the Gatineau river ribboning beside us. On the way home, driving through this cold, crisp, Canadian scenery, I listened to a lovely interview on the Current, with a woman determined to save the cheetah. You can listen to it here, if you’re interested.

I enjoyed the whole interview, but my takeaway was when she talked about the culture of “they”. Initially she figured if she just told everyone about the plight of the cheetah, “they” would do something. “They” would save the big cats. “They” couldn’t let them go extinct, could “they”?

Until, of course, she realized she was going to have to be “they” and now she works to save the cheetah.

I imagine some of you are nodding right now. Who hasn’t waited for “them” to initiate, or fix, or do, or rescue something?

Why are we so fixated on them and not us? I think there are a couple of reasons:

(1) It’s hard to do these things. It’s hard to put yourself out there. Everybody is already busy. Isn’t there somebody else who’s paid to do this? Shouldn’t there be? There must be …

(2) We underestimate ourselves. We don’t get that we are they. We are the experts. We are strong, powerful, smart. We can make change happen. We can do things.

I first began to realize this when I would go to a doctor, who was my age. Or younger. When I researched lawyers, and found I had gone to school with half of them. When I heard my contemporaries being interviewed on the radio as experts. We run the world now.

And if we’re paid and trusted to arrange people’s mortgages, and handle their divorces and teach their children, then I guess we can, and should, and need to, step up to other things too.

My most recent example is starting a science initiative at my sons’ school. Our school council is lucky to have good funding (partially because of the pizza program which I, along with a group of other “we”s – not “they”s – run). The council funds many things, but none of them were science related. I have one son, in particular, who is dying for more science exposure. And so there I was, at the last meeting, fighting for the funds to be allocated. And the basic thing is, the funds can be allocated, but they need to be directed and spent wisely. “They” should do that, shouldn’t they?

Except, of course, I looked around the room and saw a bunch of other parents – mostly moms – who looked just like me and I thought, “Oh, crap – we are they.”

So, I’m working on it with some great co-workers. The mom who agreed to be the official head of the committee admitted this initiative scares her. But her kids need more science. She’s even started her own personal science club after school for her children, and their friends, and she told me she sometimes has to Google “gravity” and other similar concepts the day before so she can figure out how best to explain them to the kids.

We’re blundering ahead. We’re not science experts, and we’re not teaching experts, but we’re determined, and we’re good organizers, and we can put scientists and teachers and money together, and we’ll end up with something much better than nothing – that I know for sure.

It’s the same for the cheetah. Or the world’s oceans. Or poverty in your community. Whatever the cause, there is likely no magic “they” out there to fix it. Even if there are other, like-minded people working on a problem, it never hurts to have another “we” onside.

I said from now on my posts might not always be writing-related, but I can even draw a link to writing here. Nobody else will finish your novel for you. Nobody else will polish it. And, once it’s published, if you wait for “them” to promote it, you might have a long, quiet wait.

So, I guess my thought on this is, the next time you think “they”, ask yourself if there’s a way you can turn it to “we” and see what happens.