Process over Outcome

Hi everyone: This is a copy of my discussion board post on steps and lessons learned:

Hi Sylvia and everyone else. Yes, I am at the point where I’m having anxiety dreams and really just wanting this semester to be over. You’re not alone. My project also hasn’t taken off. I’m very disappointed in myself for allowing all of the other things in my life to get in the way of truly launching my project. I guess it’s quite common to have big dreams and not following through as much as we’d imagined. A lot of people argue that community development is about process more than it is about outcome. It’s also about what you learn along the way. Ife writes,

There are two sorts of journey we can take. One is the journey where the aim is to arrive at our destination, usually as quickly and as comfortable as possible. We plan our journey, we work out the best route to take, and we estimate how long it will last, so that we know when we have to start in order to arrive on time. Everything is geared to the arrival, and it is a journey on which we want no surprises…. The other sort of journey is the journey of discovery. Here we are not sure where we will end up; we may have some idea of where e would ike to go, but typically it is ill-defined. We do not have detailed maps, and we cannot predict what is likely to happen. Indeed, we expect the unexpected, and when the unexpected happens we welcome it as a new opportunity. It is the journey itself that is important, rather than the arrival.

Ife, J. (2002). Community Development: community-based alternatives in an age of globalization. Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education Australia.

Good luck deciding what to do after the semester ends. It is very hard balancing personal and public and figuring out how much you can offer to projects. I’m not sure how far my project will go as my other commitments have proven to be barriers. It’s hard, but we’ve gotta focus on our learnings and not be too hard on ourselves!