Make a Difference in the World? Sure! Why not?

We are excited!

October 1st will be our first birthday here at Joyful Jubilant Learning, and we are gearing up for the big day with our 3rd annual September Learning Forum. If the math seems off, here is a quick history: the forum was hosted by my first blog Talking Story for the first two years, and it proved so successful for our learning community there, that JJL was created as our new year-long home.

So we started thinking, now that we are JJLers all the year through, what will the theme of our September forum be?

We wanted to “go big” as April would say, and with collaborative learning as our core community value, that thought itself gets us pretty energized. In a brainstorm done by all of our contributing authors, a mantra of “Let’s make a difference” emerged early, loud and clear.

JJL has become quite a global community in our first year, and we are eager to see how learners everywhere are dreaming about, and committing to make a difference for themselves, for their families, in their work’s passions, as they volunteer in their neighborhoods, and as they plan to impact our world.

The world?

Well sure, why not?

When I look back over our first year, and all that has been written and talked about here at Joyful Jubilant Learning, it is crystal clear to me that people are much more powerful than they give themselves credit for being. We human beings are capable of so much. There will be sharing expressed here on what someone has learned, and there will always – yes, always, be a glimpse of how what first seems to be one person’s experience has actually made a larger impact of some kind – or can. Learning, reach, and growth are unmistakably connected; there is a pervasive ripple effect that happens inside out, where the “inside” is a tapping in of someone’s yet-unfelt, still to be released possibility.

One of my favorite mantras to live by is this one:

Everything is – and was – impossible until the first person does it.
Can’t is not can’t, it’s won’t – so when will I?

At one time, people only reached across the globe with handwritten, posted letters, and now we do so with instantaneous clicks. At one time, people thought we would never actually see the surface of the moon, and now we can walk on it. These are but two; there are so many more examples of the impossible becoming the new normal – what will be yours?

Learning IS the catalyst, and today is yet another day I am counting my blessings that I can do so here in your inspiring company. I am so looking forward to JJL Forum 2007, and I hope you decide to write an essay and participate! Let’s make a difference.
~ Rosa Say

Comments

[Steve Sherlock]

Rosa, September will be a great time! I can hardly wait.

[Rosa Say]

It certainly will Steve! It certainly will ... the very thought of what is coming does bring a wide smile to my face!