agendas

Today, at a meeting, we got through the whole agenda. A first in a long time, for this particular meeting group. Agendas. Sometimes it is hard to get through one without hearing implicitly, or explicitly other agendas. Sometimes the agendas coincide. Sometimes they clash. Sometimes they don't seem real. Sometimes they are so blatant they just have to make me laugh. Sometimes they are so disturbing and damaging I am not sure what to do next.

I, too, bring my agendas to the table. Sometimes they are prepared. Sometimes? Not so much.

Sometimes I just wish we could all put our cards on the table. "I am afraid for my job." "I am afraid I am not doing a good job." "I don't like you, or trust you." "I want to trust you, but you keep giving me reasons not to." "I want everyone to have faith in me." "I want people to value me." "I want everyone to speak their truth." "I want everyone to do what I want." "I don't want to make a mistake'" ,or, my personal favourite, "I want everyone to get along, without any conflict." Ya, Mary-Anne, good luck with that!

And then, the whole idea of working with consensus. I would really like to do that, but it seems that this would take alot of time, and it seems decisions always need to happen quickly. Too quickly for our own good. Although today, because we took time, and revisited decisions we had delayed from last week we easily reached consensus. That felt good. I would like more training in consensus decision making. At least if it appears that I can't just make everyone do as I want! Consensus decisions make me feel more enlivened, more invigorated, more content.

But, we are human beings, with our agendas, our subjective viewpoints, our fallibilities, and our striving.

Our striving. We are doing our best. As long as we are striving, and in conversation with each other we can get through agendas. The explicit ones and the implicit ones. And, if we make a mistake, we can apologize and try to fix it. And, if we can't fix it, we can learn from it. We have to learn from our mistakes.

That should be number one on all our agendas!