I'm sitting on my back porch early the other morning reading... and I am loving it! About 20 minutes into what has become my daily morning ritual, my mind begins to wander toward all of the things I'm going to have to do today once I get to the office. I think about the fact that Light Gives Heat has very little money right now and about how I am going to get our interns motivated to continue toward some huge goals we're working on right now. We have a new version of Spread Campaign (using a system we are building called "Chrome Buffalo" - yeah... its weird, and we like that!) coming out that we've been working on for the past few months. The film that was supposed to take less than a year to finish is now a year and a half into the making and we still don't quite know how we are going to finish it with our current finances. Each week, we must make sure to keep thousands of dollars readily available in our Ugandan Bank Account, otherwise our Ugandan employees don't get paid that week and our American staff in Uganda get frustrated (rightfully so I might add).

Eyes rolling yet at this little pity party I'm holding for myself? ...but hold on, this is not my point.

This brings me back to my morning ritual.. sitting on the back porch reading... well, kind of reading. What I immediately do is begin comparing our organization to others. I look at cool new products that TOMS is coming out with (albeit crazy expensive glasses - cool, nonetheless), the cleanliness of the mission behind all that Charity Water does and how they seem to effortlessly get rock stars and movie stars behind them and then especially how Invisible Children seems to have a never ending group of good looking, trendy, cool people who live in San Diego working toward world domination...(OK, that may be stretching it a bit, but this is my head, remember? not reality! - truth be told: I love what they do and are huge fans)

I would imagine if you've read this far you can probably relate to this in some sense. For you it may not be an organization or company that you're envying. For you it may be your friend's Facebook profile that you keep checking and realizing: 1. They look much happier than you 2. They are really good at taking an insane amount of pics 3. Do they ever do really anything or do they just tell people about what they are doing? hmmmm.. ponder that.

(WARNING: this section may be a huge letdown to those who love LGH as we are going to look much more like your Facebook profile than your cool friends' profile)

Let me tell you who Light Gives Heat really is just so we're clear:

• Even though we are a growing organization, LGH barely has enough money to pay its bills every single month - and the end of each month is a crap shoot as far as if we'll have enough money to make payroll and it usually ends with us deciding that one of us will forgo a paycheck (again) in order to make sure everyone else gets paid.
  -We live in a small, really normal town in Western CO - (personally I love it - but I am 30 years old, married with 2 kids - aka not as cool as I used to be)
• A four-year-old and six-year-old run around the office a couple days each week: screaming. laughing. sometimes crying. annoying new interns. annoying staff. annoying their parents. (fyi - we are not going to win Parent of the Year this year.. I know.. I'm disappointed too)
• My Mom is our fulfillment Coordinator (but she is awesome and I wouldn't want anyone else)
• I don't have time to work out, keep a blog, or even the time to pretend like my life is cool on Facebook.
• There are really only 4 full-time paid staff with LGH in America and 3 in Uganda (I like to add them all up and say we have 15 staff which really includes staff, interns, volunteers, my kids, the occasional board member - the kid down the street, etc... you get the point - it feels good to feel bigger and better than you really are)
• We constantly (read "I constantly") want LGH to be 'cool' when the reality is we aren't - we're just us, normal everyday people trying to do something of value and trying to make our mark on the world. It's humbling to say the least.
• this list will get depressing real fast, so it's ending here

This is my point. Behind every organization, every cause, every company, my suspicion is that we are all just really normal, messy people who occasionally get jealous of one another and sometimes tend to think the grass is greener somewhere else. Well.. it's not. Its not greener here. It probably isn't greener at "TOMS Headquarters" (which by the way, every time I read that I think they are some sort of Military operation - side note... I own Toms and love what they do), it isn't any greener or easier in New York for Charity Water... but let's be honest its probably a little greener for Invisible Children as they are just cool. They all have really good hair, cool clothes, hang with Oprah and are just generally cooler than most of us. (note: in no way do I mean this in a negative way - I think all 3 are great role models for us and when you see our movie you can see the HUGE role that IC played in inspiring us to start LGH)!

I pray that I (as well as you) begin to have eyes to see the beauty in the mundane -in the normal, running around, crazy days.

The alternative is no fun.

Trust me, I know.

-Dave H.