Heard a story on Marketplace last night about a group of economists in England, over 200 of them, who have decided to volunteer and give a portion of their time and talent to helping non-profits.  It was inspired by one economist who was asked to look at one particular charity (I can't remember which one, feel free to listen to the story at the link above) to see how effective it was... I think he discovered that for ever $1 they spent, they prevented $6 of "bad" (again, don't remember what the charity was), so economically it was a very good investment. 

Inspired by this accomplishment, the economist decided that this was a great service to offer, and 200 economists later, they were ready to provide these services.  They were volunteers, costing the charities nothing.  The problem?  Very few charities want their services.

One thought is that charities are better at telling a story.. when they raise money, they focus on the good that the charity does.  Everyone likes to hear the story of the 6 year old girl who got a life-saving medical procedure, the village who got a new well and has clean local drinking water for the first time ever, that sort of thing.  We love stories, but apparently at least some charities in England are concerned that reality will collide nastily with their vision of themselves, that they don't want to know how inefficient they are.  I'm not sure if this is true or not, but it certainly sounds plausible to me.  And there's something recovery-related in there as well.

For a long time, I didn't want to take a personal inventory.  I didn't want to dredge up all the stuff in my life, good or bad.  I preferred little narratives, short stories I could tell myself in my head, good or bad, quick then gone.  I didn't want to take a hard look at it because I knew it would mean unpleasantness and change (which for me was closely related to unpleasantness).  I just wanted to keep doing what I was doing without looking too closely at it.  And the problem with that was that I was just avoiding reality.  The issues in my life were there whether or not I wanted to look at them, and it did me nothing but a disservice to avoid that inventory. 

And worse yet, blocking that inventory kept me from growing, from discarding the old ways of doing things, the old habits that were no longer useful (or in some cases were never useful), and putting new ideas and thoughts and habits in their place.  I couldn't make room for anything better (that includes God) until I got the old crap out of the way, but I was comfortable with that old crap.  It reminds me of some things in my own life.. the clutter of the house, something gets put somewhere then overlooked until it's part of the landscape.  Doesn't mean it's good or should be there, just means it's there now.  Cleaning up is hard to do, but without it, living becomes more and more cramped until it becomes impossible (I love Hoarders, creepy as it can be).  It's my house, and nobody deals with the consequences of the clutter more so than me.