This is something from my inbox this morning. Exactly right. What am I afraid of?
They’ll think I’m no good. All those videos and how much is worth anything? Who’s got time to go through all that rubbish?
And yet, exactly that is my passion. I have so enjoyed the tedious Sisyphean work of cataloging, uploading and sharing the photos and videos of our amazing South East Europe Peace Summit to the Women’s Federation for World Peace Europe FaceBook page and on DropBox. It has taken a week just to upload the videos, and would take even longer to process them all. We need good photos now! For a report tomorrow, send them yesterday! Again I realize how I am the one for the detailed processing. I am not a data assistant for nothing! I have the patience and the eye for detail and the determination to get the job done. And I am self motivating. Don’t tell me what to do. But do tell me I’m okay. LOL. Is that what I’m afraid of? I’m just not good enough? Let it go. Of course, some of it should be trashed.
Franz you were right!
Thank you Franz for your honesty. You are right. It does not all deserve to be kept. It is just a memory to those who were there. And yet, I perceive so much more from the videos. How gratifying it was for me to hear that you kept every single one of my sound track videos of our bus trip through former Yugoslavia. I know that the scenery videos were boring, poor quality, repetitious, bumpy, out of focus, foggy, through the rain scenes of the Bosnian country-side. But I could not press the stop recording button as long as another participant, a refugee, a former Yugoslavian, told her story of her struggle, her fight, her pain, her sacrifice and then her resignation, acceptance, gratitude and healing as she said: “and now Austria is my home”.
Just as you appreciated those testimonies, so I cling to videos and photos. So many memories. But I want to share them! I want to tell those stories. I am so blessed to be able to appreciate what I have, where I’m living, what I’ve been through. I want to help heal the world, to understand, to forgive, love, unite. I want to build those bridges. I want to take that journey.
Of course I wish I had better equipment and some support. I’d love a team of young people who optimize my phone to live stream more successfully. It would have been good if I knew that I need to turn on my phone and focus before I turn on the live streaming. But hey! That’s called “Learning by doing”. Yes, I took a few clips with no sound. At first I couldn’t figure out what’s wrong. Why does my phone not film properly? Then I figured it out! My selfie plug isn’t connecting the sound! So now I can still film with my selfie stick, but I have to turn it on manually and NOT plug in the connection. That works. And since I’m already an avid user of Freemake Video Converter, I already know how to edit out bits I don’t want or even join clips together. Yay! I am great! I have confidence. Yes I can! I can do this! I’m all for Life-long Learning!
And thank you Madisyn Taylor. I have discovered how to share your posts. You always add the PRINT – SAVE – DISCUSS buttons on the bottom of your posts. And right there is the link to the article I just read which just confirms it all! Just do it!
https://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/display/articledisplay.cgi?aid=71212
Why am I so blessed? Not, why am I so fat?!
How can I give more? Not, why is my rent so high?!
I’m so grateful to be living at this time, in this place, to be an instrument of peace, to have resources available to me which I can use in the comfort of my own home (well, own rented flat ). I’m so grateful to be able to share a smidgin of my experiences and look forward to lively discussions and sharing and philosophizing. Of course I sometimes wish I could still be working at the UN. I am completely capable of still doing so much. I could still be contributing to a generous pension fund which might give me better conditions in the future. Yet now I am getting on my home trainer every morning, just as the physiotherapist recommended. Would I be doing that if I was working full-time? We were in Vienna for a year and I only got on the home trainer about twice when I was still working.
Yes, there too I was already filming, recording, documenting, archiving history. Was I really the only one recording this historic event? Oh, how badly framed, composed. Yet, is it the only record? Well, there’s also the press conference on Beyond 2008. There’s another photographer at the back of the room.
Have I got Imposter Syndrome?
Lilly Gundacker is the former (and only) Data Assistant at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Division of Nuclear Security, Information Management Section. She spent ten years at home (in Seebenstein, Linz and Zwettl) as the mother of five sons who all became Vienna Choir boys, while also supporting her husband in the home office when he was a travelling salesman.
She joined the Austrian workforce full-time at the age of 45 years when others were saying that women over 40 are unemployable. She became a communications trainer and motivated unemployed mothers re-entering the workforce after maternity leave.
Lilly jumped at the opportunity to represent the Women’s Federation for World Peace International (WFWPI) at the United Nations in Vienna as an NGO (Non-Government Organization) Representative in 2003. She was active in the Committee on Peace, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Committee on Narcotic Drugs, the Vienna Crime Alliance, the Space Committee and also attended the Committee on Aging. She became secretary of the Drugs Committee (VNGOCND) and helped stage the Beyond 2008 Conference which was the first and biggest NGO conference at the Vienna International Centre where Member State representatives had to sit at the back as observers and the NGO Members had the floor and the voting rights. Lilly Gundacker withdrew from active WFWP representation in 2009 when she began working for the IAEA.
Love your resilience!! You have always been a roll model and “Kickass” individual. I am hapoy to been given a glimpse of what you are still looking forward to do.
See you at the next VIC Toastmaster Club meeting?