Don't Cry for Me

To celebrate the culmination of Tania's campaign leadership work, Lisa and I went to the election results watch party, or the Super Fat Tuesday party--as one of the Obaminators put it, since it took place on Fat Tuesday. She was as buoyant as ever, despite the bronchitis, a 5:30am start to the day, and weeks of meetings, organizing, and late night calls from volunteers.

Tania's enthusiasm for Barack Obama can blast a room clear of doubt in two heartbeats. She was so inspired by his book and the leader himself, that she went to a volunteer meeting on a Thursday, started canvassing on a Saturday, and turned her duties as a neighborhood team coordinator into those of the Santa Barbara Team Coordinator in about 6 weeks' time.

Tania's enthusiasm grew as Obama became more than a candidate. He became a movement. This groundswell of people came forward as citizens of a nation, rather than passive riders on The Big Bus. People were talking and volunteering and pasting bumper stickers...getting excited that things could really be different.

Then my fear grew. What if...our nation puts ALL of its hope into this rising star? When movements swell, they swell from the heart. It is our passions and desires that get us off our rumps and into the election booth, and beyond. We get excited like teenagers that goodness really IS possible, and we pin all of that possibility on the ONE we think will make it for us.

What will happen to everyone's morale and spirit if something awful happens to Barack Obama? What will happen to the light that he is growing, and the hope people are excited about? Strategically, if you want to put a hole in a nation, kick its hope in the shins. Worse, knock it out completely.

That's when I started writing about leadership and personal accountability. 'Cause I got scared of the country's rampant hope. (Backwards? Maybe.) You have to understand that I just lost a leader, myself. My late boss, who died in December, was a leader and mentor to many people he encountered, especially those of us who worked with him directly. After losing him so suddenly and tragically, it has given me a lot of moments to meditate on what you pin your hopes on when your leader is gone.

What I have come up with is what lies here in these blog pages. That we need to call on ourselves to fulfill ourselves; that we need to be contributors ourselves, instead of solely placing our hopes on someone who will do it for us, save us for us.

Back to Tania. On Less-Super Wednesday, it was time to break down the campaign office after an undecided race. People were asking Tania if she was upset that Obama was not the clear winner, if she felt like she failed, if she was having a hard day. And when she was telling me this story she was grinning and saying, "Are you kidding me? I feel great! My work is DONE. I did what I set out to do: I helped win 112 precincts out of 131!! I delivered on my promise."

Then she quoted the Dalai Lama: "Attachment to outcome? Bad idea."

And this my friends, brings me to the moral of my story. Tania shouldered her hope. She carried the weight of it, even while campaigning her heart out for the man who would improve her country. She's a HUGE supporter of Obama, and yet, she did not give ALL of her hope over to him. She volunteered for the campaign so she could CONTRIBUTE to the leadership process, which if you think about it, is exactly what Barack Obama is doing.

Tania is my inaugural Exemplary Human of the Week, because she so well exemplifies the notions I've been pondering aloud here these days. Let's be a nation of Tanias. :-)