The past Saturday August 3, 2019 was a memorable one – in a bad way. Many people lost their lives, others wounded, and countless lives were forever changed in a negative way due to two separate acts of violence from two separate people. But instead of focusing on the victims, what could be done to help them, and/or what could be done to mitigate these things from happening again, things around our wonderful nation got quite ugly. Even more so than where we were before.  IMO this ugliness is just a continuing escalation of what’s been happening in our society for many many years, beyond that of the current presidential administration, regardless of political affiliation. In my opinion it is a result of where some, not all, our collective society has been heading for some time. Hate, disrespect, the anger, hostility, single-mindedness, immorality, entitlement, lack of civility, lack of compassion, lack of understanding, apathy, us vs them, me vs everyone, mine vs yours, it goes on and on. All or some of these were definite contributions to the pathology behind the motives of those two people who enacted those horrible events. But all of these things have been present in human history for quite some time. Their magnitude goes up and down, the spotlight on them comes and goes, but they have ALWAYS been there. There is no one singular root cause for what happened, why it happened, this past weekend – and previous similar instances of mass violence. There is no quick fix to these things. A singular directive from the top down will not fix them. Some of these things are a result of societal norms, the environment which people operate in, the culture in which they live.

A culture shift takes time and effort from everyone in it. A culture shift takes the decision from everyone to show the change they want to see. As one person enacts that change, hopefully their ripple effect causes others to change in some small way or another.

This is where we F3 PAX are going to pay forward all of the wonderful things we have learned from, and have been somehow improved by, our efforts while in F3. We are going to put the term High Impact Man to the test and show everyone how we can be just that. We are going to be the community leaders that F3 has helped invigorate, more so than what we currently are. We are going to be the change we want to, and need to, see in this world.

DORA Challenge – DOing Random Acts

Yes, everyone has heard of “Random Acts of Kindness”, etc. It will be similar to that.

Every day for the next 30 or so days PAX who commit to this challenge will be given a task to do. You may not have to complete it that very day, but the prescribed task has to be completed by the end of the 30 or so days. At the end of the 30 or so days, you perform 10 burpees for every challenge you could/did not complete. Modify or pick another exercise as needed, but stick to only 1 exercise.

Here are the challenges, and a few more rules:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fz-_yarls5osMBR9zQZCW7ahMSH3LWT8IqGoypLFVss/edit?usp=sharing

Copy and paste to your browser. Print it out or whatever. Put it somewhere where you can get to it, reference it. Manage your own self accountability or get someone to help you. Keep track of what you have, have not completed regularly, however you see fit. I will send out the daily challenges via Twitter (follow me at @F3_NASA_ESR) and in the Slack channel “DORA Challenge” as a reminder.

Let’s make some positive impact and send a lot of ripples throughout our society, and maybe even help positively change the trajectory of others whom we interact with while doing so. If one person gets affected by what we do, then that is a win. Mission accomplished! But WE have to be that change, it has to start with each of us.

Let’s get it done!!

Thanks and God Bless!
– NASA