Local goodness

I managed to absolutely surprise myself with this one, but it fits. As most of you might know, I play the clarinet. It's very boring to play the clarinet alone, so I'm in an orchestra. That orchestra needs to be managed, so there is a board. On Monday morning I had no idea that the day would end with me joining the board, but in the evening I was voted in by all members, after I volunteered to join. What happened?

Looking back, there are a couple of reasons why I joined.

I feel like this year, 2025, is a year when we all have to decide what matters in our lives. On a grand scale, the world is going absolutely insane. The threat of war, more and more world leaders are a bunch of manosphere clowns, nobody gives a damn about the climate. It's just too much, and I don't feel like I have any influence over this stuff. Reading the newspaper makes me depressed (yes, I read the newspaper like I'm a boomer, bite me), and I feel like the only realistic answer I have is to focus my efforts locally.

I can't fix the world problems, but I can do good shit locally. Don't litter, don't be a dick to the people around you, it starts with the basics. But you can also join in on efforts you care about, volunteer your time for a cause you support. For me, that's making sure my orchestra is going to keep existing for a long time.

I was, of course, doubting to do it because volunteering does have consequences. Protecting my time is very important to me. I have: my IT job, my nutrition & strength training coach job, powerlifting 4x per week, orchestra, a husband that would like attention, friends, family. You can't keep adding stuff to it in the hopes it will magically work out.

Everything you commit to comes at a cost of your time. You can only spend time once, and there's only so much optimisation you can do. Ten to fifteen years ago, I was very bad at saying no and asking for help, and I learned the hard way how silly that was. So I became less of a people pleaser and more of a protector of my own time.

For my orchestra, I was already involved with some things, though. I am building the new website right now, I have written a marketing plan for the board, I am involved with the PR already. The board member who was responsible for this stuff was leaving the board, so the opening was right there...

I realised that I wanted real influence. I imagined someone else taking the position, and it made me go like "no, I want to be the one to do it!". And I don't mean that in the sense of "I want all the powerrrrrrr", no I want to be the one who leads the efforts for the PR and marketing. Call it ambition, I guess.

The only thing that had me hesitating is a fear of myself. I take everything I do very seriously, even though some people can't tell because I always insert jokes and memes and sarcasm into everything (that's always a hilarious clash when I run into humorless people). The downside of taking everything very seriously is that it leaves me very vulnerable to criticism. I have a hard time NOT taking criticism personally. I wanted to not join the board because I am afraid of getting hurt.

The things is....that would be an absolute cowardly reason to say no. Life happens, everyone gets hurt once in a while. Why would I let fear win? So, I'm going to do it. Knowing full well that I'll run into tough moments, where I have to deal with criticism from people, and I'll just have to cope somehow.

On Monday morning, the chairwoman of the board called me and we had a nice chat. I started considering joining...I went for a walk with Oliver and talked with him about it. At one point he was like "it seems you have already decided", and yes, in my heart I knew that I wanted to do it. That evening, I went to the yearly general assembly meeting with the whole orchestra present (Dutch: de ALV van de vereniging) and surprised absolutely everyone by saying I wanted to join. Hah, the look on some peoples faces was absolutely priceless. I think every member voted in favour, and that was it! I'm in!

Joining the board fits so much with my life's philosophy right now: do good, locally.

What are you doing locally? How are you coping with the crazy state of the world right now?