Impact at Scale

As I wait for my early morning flight with heavy eyes and some disorientation, I feel surprised I'm not the least bit irritated or annoyed at it. I've always had trouble with being physically drained out, it makes me cranky. But today, the 7th night in a row that I've slept for less than 3 hours, I feel satisfied, at peace! 

It has been a maddening week and I could use a good sleep but my mind keeps racing back to yesterday's meeting with the Chief Minister. There has been an average of 10-15% reduction in public grievances in the state, read one of the many achievements on the slide. I didn't think of it much then. It was just a number. But now, I'm not sure of the emotions running around thinking about what that actually means, changing lives at a massive scale, an entire state. Multiple institutions cutting across various departments have been impacted, indirectly reaching tens of thousands of people. I have never even seen so many people. May be that is the reason I'm not sure about what I feel. I can't put my finger on someone's name and say yes this person here has changed, its not personal. Maybe I'm selfish to want to see the happiness in the people that have been impacted. Nevertheless, being part of this increasingly motivated high energy team makes me proud, proud that we have touched lives we'll probably never know of. And that for me, is a scary feeling. Scary because its new, because it brings along a huge, huge responsibility! This is what I'm used to reading about in papers, some scheme affecting some lakhs of people and suddenly now I'm with a team that does that, its unnerving! 

Also, witnessing the full power of the state for the first time was moving to say the least. All the Chief Minister had to do was turn to his officer and look and the issue was handled. For the first time ever I saw what it means to be at the helm of a state, to have the whole population's mandate. The sheer power of that office was nakedly visible every time a sentence was breathed and people around scribbled into their notebooks to get it done. Along with power of course came responsibility. Every request was not heeded blindly, it couldn't be. The accounting for multiple peoples, managing multiple variables in the system, it was absolutely important to take the right decisions at the right time. How do you keep up with these things? How do you live up to that responsibility? How do you do even better? How do you not succumb to the pressure it puts on you? How do you ensure the ground beneath you doesn't just slip away one day?

Because of my sleeplessness, I'm unable to process so much but one thing is for sure, there is a lot more to be achieved than was!