A week ago (18th-20th) I was in Boston for the HubSpot INBOUND24 conference. HubSpot is the marketing and email program we use at work. The conference was all of the things: amazing, informative, bright, crowded, impressive and exhausting. I loved it, but I’m very glad it wasn’t more than three days. I don’t think I could have sustained that energy level for longer!
Last week I was back at work for Monday-Thursday afternoon and then I headed up to Pittsfield, MA for my company’s ERG (Employee Resource Group) Summit. That was also terrific. We had great speakers, including one from Tangible Development who also sent a speaker last year. The speaker last year, LB, and this year, Marlia were so good. Interesting, engaging, informed, all the things you want a speaker to be. We did a lot of talking and planning for the next year.
The thing I was most grateful for was the sense of hope Marlia instilled in us. The world feels off the rails right now. There are a lot of voices, many of them screaming at top volume, saying things that are diametrically opposed to everything I believe in, everything this country should be about, and what good people should walk for the future. It’s so easy to look at the US as a dying empire and to think that the people who want to drag us backwards are winning. But there are still so many people out there doing good work, fighting the good fight and trying to make things better for everyone, not just the top 1% we keep hearing so much about. It’s wasy for that to get lost in the crowd of bad news and bad ideas.
We are in the downward swing of a cycle that has always been a part of our growth. We’ve been going in the wrong direction in a lot of ways, but we can still turn it around. We can still swing back and even make progress.
“Its darkest before the dawn” may be a cliché, but it’s also a good reminder that things don’t have to be bad or worse: things can and will get better. We just to hang in there and keep trying.
More soon!
Lara
2024 Lara Johnson