Do What You Can, With Who You Have, Where You Are

I admit: I used to entertain career fantasies from a perspective a bit more disconnected from reality. In such imagined scenarios, I'd have a team of experts assisting all aspects of my media and travel projects:

-An expert helping me choose the topic to cover
-An expert arranging my travel
-An expert creating a marking campaign for the project
-An expert finding sponsors for the endeavor
-A team of experts (sound, cinematography, writers) taking all my footage and creating the final product

One by one, they'd approach me with proposals I'd shrewdly examine, decide on, and then he or she would be off to do the legwork. I think this fantasy was inspired by movies or TV shows featuring bigwigs (boss, president, CEO) with a team of advisors at their service.

"Yeah," I'd think during this daydream. "That would be great."

Well, what the movie wouldn't show is that in order to be a bigwig, one usually has to do an inordinate amount of legwork themselves. In addition, I was imagining some stereotyped version of these "experts."

Waiting for this ideal expert to just magically turn up, the results were unsurprising: I did a lot of work alone.

Such disconnection kept me from following advice I first read as a freshman in college. On someone's dorm room door read a sign:

Do What You Can
With What You Have
Where You Are

I can still remember reading this and then later sharing this quote with a friend.

I can also remember being nudged toward this advice by way of watching a lot of movies in college. I noticed directors liked to use the same actors throughout their films. This was an insight into the on-the-ground efforts of making a big Hollywood film. Rather than just assuming these films just "came together," I considered how writers, directors, and actors cooperating on one project would naturally lead to another, and then another, and another. They were doing what they could, with who they had, where they were. They were building, creating, doing in their situation.

With a little more wisdom than I had back when I was 18 (or 30), I've been able to heed this advice on my latest project covering homelessness in America. I've opened my eyes, made a connection, and have been working with my editor cousin Krista. She and I put our heads together again last week to continue our work on episode 1 of this documentary series.

We tackled the second half of the episode, a segment titled "How Did We Get Here?" offering a brief history of homelessness in the U.S. from the late 1800s to today.

Beyond family, I'm working with friend Joe who's been my cameraman for a few interviews, as well as friend David, a videographer offering guidance on this project.

All the work--the research, the travel, the interviews, the surveys, the time editing--is being made possible by our supporters. This includes those offering American $ donations. This includes those upvoting these updates:) So, to you, I (we) offer a great, big thank you. Each dollar (Steem or other) helps us share the story of (and stories within) the Minneapolis tent city, as well as examine the causes and solutions to the homeless crisis across America.

One last point about working with who you have and where you are: I've found this doesn't just provide adequate help. It has provided those perfect for the project. This goes for Krista, Joe, and Dave. It also goes for my dear Grandpa Ferdig, who I interviewed for the second time on Friday. The first time, he shared his grizzly bear story from Alaska. This time, he shared a boyhood story of his family in northern Minnesota driving to the Red Lake Indian Reservation to join the Native Americans for a July 4th celebration.

For those like me from this part of the country, such an event seems strange, because 1. it's not something most area whites would consider today. And 2. It implies a history where relations between Natives American and whites in Minnesota were better than today. How is this possible? And might this be contributor to why so many Native Americans resided at the tent city here in Minneapolis?

Thanks to Grandpa, I'll have a chance to dig further into this idea, an idea right in front of me the whole time--where I was, with whom I had before me.

I hope you had a festive, uplifting New Year's celebration, and best of luck doing whatever you can, with whatever/whoever you have, wherever you are in 2019.