Most of my ideas were ambushed before they ever entered the world. I remember my early days of prevention in my community. I was eager and truly naive. One of the first projects I wanted to do was a community resource guide. 

Oh, the community resource guide. Who hasn’t talked about one of these?

Several folks had mentioned the need and how difficult it was to locate anything or how nothing was ever current online. I thought, I could help! I can help! I told a few community leaders about the request and asked if anything was accessible, comprehensive, and current.

I will never forget the established community leader who said, “That’s a waste of time. Everyone has tried it before you.” She looked at me like a young and inexperienced drifter, one who would be gone soon enough, on to something outside of community service. I could tell she didn’t much care for me, my eagerness, or my ideas. She interacted with me like she thought she could wait me out. I pushed forward with the idea and learned to steer clear of her. (I don’t bother or impose on those who don’t want me around. It’s all you need to look at to know who collaborates with me or won’t.)

Her words rang true. 

I didn’t listen and didn’t care what she said. I spent so much time learning the various resources, talking to people, and figuring out what we had. I developed a community asset assessment because one of the hundreds of toolkits I read discussed the need to shift our approaches from focusing on what we lacked to wealth. We needed to know what existed to strengthen those efforts while identifying what was needed to fill gaps. No one had ever done an asset assessment. Many commented they had never even heard of it before. I realized that while there are hundreds of established best practices, the variation of efforts and practices in the field are built on the ones pushing the work forward. This is why nothing is the same. Unlike other fields where standards exist to prescribe effective solutions, in the prevention field, people can do what they want. Damn the consequences.

I wasted a lot of time and energy, and ultimately, we decided that a simple tri-fold brochure of local mental health services was the best thing we could do. I remember feeling deflated. She had been right. It had been a lot of energy and time. I had learned a great deal about the resources, but more than anything I learned what happens when opinion leaders do not support your idea. I rolled a brochure around in my hands and wondered if I could have been successful if others had been more accepting.

We gave the brochures to officers to keep behind their ticket pads in their patrol units when encountering someone experiencing a mental health crisis. They had talked about needing to give someone something right at that moment. How telling people to seek services online meant they simply wouldn’t. We printed them and handed them to organizations, service providers, you name it. I folded thousands upon thousands personally and drove all over town to provide them for free to the community. I creased those papers and most likely folded brochures in my sleep. My hands reenacted the motions from the day before.

It was nothing like what I had imagined, even though many people told me how helpful they were. One woman called and cussed me out because it didn’t look like what she wanted it to look like. I’ll never forget her and that terrifyingly random call. It was something, and for the most part, people wanted them. I was surprised at how few knew about the resources we had listed. A comprehensive resource guide would have been substantial support because this tri-fold was in demand. Years after I moved away from this community and work, I still receive random emails or calls asking if I can reproduce them. It’s never fun telling people you can’t anymore. Such a simple tool that so many were thankful to have.

In the end, the idea didn’t matter, and I rarely think about that project at all. What I do think about is the leader’s words and how she nearly shut me down. She tried to shut me down. Her words and disdain for a recycled resource directory showed me she wasn’t an ally or a mentor. She wasn’t someone who would help me or offer guidance. I wonder if she thought, “Another day, another random person walking into this space I’ve worked in for so long.” It doesn’t matter. Her attitude could have kept me from thinking of thousands of more recycled or revolutionary ideas. Had I been so easily turned away or dismissed, her attitude could have shut a door to someone who only wanted to help. Someone willing to do as much as possible to better the spaces I walked in.

I’ve had thousands more ideas that have never gone as far as that one. Many were ludicrous looking back now. Some still make me chuckle when I think about them. I’ve spent more money than I care to count on ways to help those who may not even know they need it. I’ve volunteered, given, and donated in every imaginable way, and I have found that there is always a naysayer in these spaces of helping. There is always a door closer, and there are always people who dream despite the dream dashers.

I’ve been doing this work for a decade now. Years ago, I wished I had the experience behind me so that others would take me seriously. I hoped the years would come so I would no longer be disregarded when I had a foolish idea. In all my years of working in this space, I know that my ideas will always meet resistance. People will bark or complain or try to shut others down. They will do it for reasons we can suspect and reasons we will never know. What they don’t stop to consider is that some of the ideas can help someone. It may even be the someone with the idea. If we aren’t mindful, the people who bring up ideas may stop sharing if the wrong person says the wrong thing without consideration of the other.

I needed this work as much as all of us need it. I needed to see that there was a place where I could dedicate my heart and help my home. I needed ideas to keep me from focusing on the thoughts trying to stifle life right out from underneath me. I needed others to see me as a friend and not a foe. But sometimes, we can’t be surrounded by people who foster our growth; this is the truth of life and this work. Some people will always find us threatening. Some will never try to see us for who we try to be.

I’m lucky to be stubborn enough to do what I want and see it fail. I will continue to abandon things that aren’t reasonable or realistic because sometimes we have to learn for ourselves. But that’s the thing: it isn’t my place to shut someone else down just because I learned the hard way. Hell, maybe this other person can do what I couldn’t. Maybe their idea was more thought out than my own. Perhaps they will prove me wrong to simply prove me wrong. I know that feeling drives me from time to time.

I’ll never forget that woman who tried to shut me down because some part of me didn’t live up to her standard. I pushed on despite her, and now I have the opportunity to lead projects and efforts beyond anything I would have imagined ten years ago. My drive to help was stronger than her brief sting of criticism, and I know how lucky I am that this is the case for me. 

If you’re in this work and someone tells you, “You can’t,” Keep on anyway. Steer clear of them, but you keep on. They have lost their passion somewhere along the road, which is dangerous. This work demands that we be passionate because it lacks the rewards that other fields often have. In prevention, we can’t see what never happens, so we must be passionately dedicated to creating change no matter what’s in it for us. Your ideas may not all work out, but they keep us moving, and movement is life. 

If you are the one dismissing others, please take a long, hard look inward and ask yourself why you are still in this work. Maybe it’s time for a change. Maybe something is missing. Either way, please consider what you chance destroying when you tell others, “It’s a waste of time.” Because anything that keeps us here even a moment longer is worth it.