实在抱歉，又是英文， 无奈中文打字速度太慢。 还请尽心阅读， 此文虽非字字珠玑， 但确是肺腑之言-- Catherine
Finally, I went through all the discussions and debate on the forum, would like to share my perspectives and thoughts as a human beings The intention here is not to invite even hotter debating, but call for action. Talk less but do more is my style. 坐言起行是我的风格。
Based on the meeting at Sunday night with Robin, Camber, Sixin and other volunteers, I think we have the same common interest and alignment/agreement, which is the strong foundation for us to move ahead.
Alignment 1: Everybody is trying their best to make contribution to lighthouse to make it better and better. Nobody intend to hurt lighthouse.
Alignment 2: Everybody want to help the students who are located outside city/GZ. From the absolute level point of view, the arrival of lighthouse volunteers is much better to local students than nothing, ie do something is absolutely better than do nothing.
Alignment 3: Everybody want to improve both the Quality and Quantity in short/long term.
Alignment 4: Everybody agree that Lighthouse need to further expand, only focusing in Guangdong province is not the intention or ultimate objective.
Alignment 5: Expansion in winter holiday is not a good practice, we agree that we would only do the expansion in summer holiday in foreseeable future
Alignment 6: We need to avoid the too stretch/fast expansion speed, such as, 200% incremental amount (from 2 schools to 4 schools), but need to have some further expansion at a certain level/suitable speed.
Alignment 7: We can not wait for everything get perfect then do expansion. There is no perfect thing in the world.
Then, I would like to share my overview for lighthouse 5-years plan:
1. Expand 1 or 2 school in this summer holiday, if possible , have one school in the neighbor province of GD. (expansion speed is 50%)
2. If without further support from private or government, we would like to maintain this scale(5 or 6 schools) for two more years during 2003-2004.
3. Focusing on strengthening foundation and building up systems and networking during 2003/2004 and get prepared for next wave expansion.
4. Get the further expansion (expansion out side GD province) in 2005-2006. Ideally get 10 schools. (expansion speed is 20%-30%).
Current situations:
1. Some volunteers are willing to do more work on system improvement and quality control.
2. Some volunteers are willing to do more expansion work to benefit more students.
My perspectives on the debating/discussion:
1. To me, there is no conflict between them. Both are right It is absolutely not necessary for such long debating and discussion, we can simply "JUST DO IT". Improving system and expansion are equally important for lighthouse at this point of time. We need to get balanced and it is wrong if we only do one side. The challenge to the organization/us is not to choose which one to do, the challenge to us is how to do both of them. We need to further improve our efficiency and system to achieve greater accomplishment.
2. We need to focus on figuring out how to do more, rather than spending time in convincing other volunteers to give up their original thoughts and following your thoughts. It is better for all of us to do what we are willing to do. Would like to further clarify one point: in lighthouse, everybody make contribution on what they can contribute or they are willing to contribute. There is no forced will in lighthouse.
3. I hope everybody can focus their effort on the control circle which is the easiest way to maximize your impact in the most efficient way. I would like to share one very interesting practice which influences me a lot in my life. There are 3 circles in our daily work/life. The first one is control circle which is the smallest one. In the circle you can control everything, eg: your attitude, your belief, your effort, your habits, your time, etc. The second circle is influence circle which is bigger and surrounding control circle. In the circle, you can't fully control but still can give some impact eg: your girl friend's life attitude, your boyfriends hair style, your mother's habit, etc. The third one is "concern circle" which is the biggest one and surrounds the above two. In this circle, you can give least control nor impact, you can only worry but can't give effective impact, eg: US fight with some small country for nonsense reason, the earth will disappear in some day.
4. Based on my person experience and learning, I would suggest that :
a). it is better for us to focus on the control circle than worrying about a lot of things which you can't solve/control or even can't give impact on. DOING is more helpful, productive, constructive and healthy than just TALKING or QUESTIONING, or WORRYING.
b). If you believe that improving system/quality is the area you are most willing to work for lighthouse, pls. Focus your effort on this and really spend time on thinking through how to do that and DO IT. Pls Don't waste your excellent talent/effort and limited timing on only talking about the importance of it. Just do it. Catherine is always behind you, support you and provide all I have to help you.
c). If you believe expansion is the area you are willing to work on, Just start to work, don't worry about that expansion is a huge work , it is quite simple and easy job, once your start to work, you will get many many resource/support from me, Ken, Robin, Camber, etc, etc. I can ensure you that you will meet with unpredictable challenge but also huge accomplishment and happiness, which will be the momentum of your life.
d). If you are not willing to do either part of the job, but purely want to debate/discussion, Catherine sincerely beg you to spend time on giving suggestion to those volunteers who are working on their own part, but please don't spend time on questioning them, confusing them or convincing them to other side or challenging them what they are doing is right or not. Please, please don't do that any more because It most likely doesn't help to develop the organization and move ahead. Our current resource/people/effort is very limited so that we can't offer any time/effort to debate again and again.
Since we have so many common interest and alignment, Please. Take action based these agreement and focus on what you can do instead of what you can talk. The life/world will really reward your action/result but not your discussion. Pls. Trust me, only starting to work can prove your thought is right or not.
There is no easy job/free lunch/ smooth road in the world, I truly understand your disappointment, your suffer, your difficulties, your losing, your confusion and every negative feeling, believe it or not, I also had when we started to set up lighthouse. 一切感同身受。At the beginning of lighthouse, I had much much more difficult timing than you, than now. Me , Ken and Robin had thought to give up for many many times, but luckily we insisted finally, so that you can have the opportunity to see us, to join lighthouse, so that, WE have more than enough courage to overcome current difficulties, all the difficulties are all paper tigers. We will be the winning team.
I am happy to see you personally if you have disagreement on the above point of view. We can discuss face to face or by e-mail. Or you can even send me private message in the forum, but please don't public anymore. The reason why I am here is to help your guys to achieve some thing you are willing/ or want to achieve. I want to help the valued people to go to where they want to go. This is so-called a leader.
