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Welcome back to The Bend!
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The Bend follows a simple rhythm each week. The Eddy Line opens with a one-line thought or
observation, something short enough to remember but worth thinking
about. What the Current Pulled Toward dives a
little deeper into where the previous week’s energy went, whether that’s
a project, a partnership, or a personal lesson learned. Signal Fire highlights a person, place, or initiative
that deserves some attention. From the
Field, shares a small anecdote about the broader outdoor
recreation economy from Oxbow’s non-profit arm, the VA
MTNS Outdoor Collective. And One Thought Worth
Sitting With closes things out with a brief reflection or quote
that will hopefully help guide you through whatever you may be dealing
with.
It’s part journal, part field note, and hopefully
something that makes you pause for a moment before diving back into the
current.
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“Patience is rarely my first instinct.”
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What the Current Pulled Toward
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This week the current pulled toward
patience.
Or more accurately, my ongoing lack of
it.
I tend to move fast. I respond
quickly. I make decisions quickly. If something needs attention, I
generally want it addressed now rather than later. This
isn’t because I enjoy chaos, rather it’s quite
the opposite. I just operate with a pretty high
sense of urgency more often than not.
The problem I run into is that not everyone else does.
Emails sit. Call backs take time. Projects move
slower than I think they should. Meetings have to happen before other
meetings can happen. Decisions get layered through processes, boards,
committees, budgets, politics, personalities, and timelines that often
feel endless. It all drives me bonkers
sometimes.
Especially because my
professional life has largely existed in and around local government,
where progress often requires a long-game mindset. Public sector work
rarely has any quick wins and most meaningful things take years,
sometimes decades.
Trails. Parks.
Conservation. Community Development. Organizational Culture. None of
these things move as quickly as we’d like them to.
Patience doesn’t have to be about waiting, though. We
can make the choice to accept that not
everything moves at your preferred speed. However, that doesn’t mean having to lower expectations. It doesn’t
mean having to lose urgency. It just means understanding that being
frustrated and wallowing in it doesn’t accelerate the process one bit.
It’s much easier said than done and I feel certain I will always
struggle with it.
I just have to
keep telling myself that just because something isn’t moving quickly
doesn’t mean it isn’t moving.
- Mike.
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The Foothills Conservancy has spent many years protecting land, expanding public access,
and helping shape conservation efforts across western North Carolina.
Their work stretches from trail corridors and river access projects to
large-scale land conservation efforts tied to places like the South
Mountains region and the Wilderness Gateway corridor.
What I appreciate about them and organizations like
them is that their work almost always requires patience.
Land conservation doesn’t happen quickly. Trail
corridors don’t come together overnight. Partnerships take time. Funding
takes time. Trust takes time.
Most of
the outcomes people eventually enjoy - trails, protected landscapes,
public access - are usually the result of many years of work that most
folks never see.
To get the desired
result, oftentimes you have to be willing to play the long
game.
To learn more about Foothills, click
here.
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A lot of outdoor economy success stories look
sudden from the outside. A new trail system
opens. An outfitter expands. A downtown starts attracting visitors. A
region develops a reputation as an outdoor destination.
But if you trace it backward, just about all of those
stories started years earlier.
Planning. Easements. Conservation work. Grant applications.
Public meetings. Infrastructure investments. Relationships.
The outdoor economy is often discussed as if it’s
something communities can simply decide to have.
More often than not, it’s something that requires years of
building.
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One Thought Worth Sitting With
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This week’s theme: Patience.
“Adopt the pace of nature:
her secret is patience.“
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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