Accounting Accountability
How do we revive economic inclusion in our community spaces? Here's how Evan puts invisible professionals on a level with visible professionals in their approach to Intuitive network volunteering.
“Accounting Accountability” —-by Evan Jacques with M. Morris, Intuitive Copy, & Intuitive Intensive (3 Jan 2022) https://t.me/IntuitiveCopy, https://t.me/IntuitiveIntensive, https://t.me/IntuitivePublicRadio
I often find it very challenging to do anything that someone isn't actively, authoritatively holding me to as a commitment. Paying me is a way of doing that; abusing me is another way of doing that.
Since neither of those was happening in the Intuitive network, I was having trouble showing up reliably and often disappeared for long periods.
I needed to find a way to provide that structure for myself.
I decided to put a monetary value on my work.
If I were paying someone to do this job, I'd value it at at least $16 per hour, so the 45 minutes I volunteer per day would be worth $12.
So if I don't show up without prior agreement, since I've committed to being here, I owe the network $12 in compensation for the loss of support. If I show up late, I pay a late fee of $6.
Max has made it clear at every turn that she doesn't ask for or expect this. It's a disability support for me — created by me, working with our shared toolsets — that also benefits the network, as all our disability supports here do. Having it has saved me from disappearing for weeks at a time the way I used to.
Sometimes I have a week or so where I don't really feel able to be in the network, even though I know that people could literally die as a result. Failures that have serious moral consequences really destroy my functionality, so in the past I was disappearing *because I disappeared*.
Showing up daily to pay my compensation fee (or at least promise to pay it when I have that money and can share it) keeps my guilt at a healthy level where it's genuinely about my regard for others and about my recognition of community circumstances that would otherwise prevent their needs being met.
This is much better than my guilt reaching a toxic level where any concern about my relationships with others takes second place to overwhelming distress about my relationship with myself. Since implementing this approach, I'm no longer being stopped from helping "because I failed, because I failed, because I failed."
Sometimes my "care about friends" neurons don't work to produce action. I can understand the stakes, want to help, worry about the fact that I'm not helping, etc., but all it produces is guilt and stuckness.
But my "don't lose $12" neurons might be working perfectly fine and produce action with no problems.
Rather than domination tactics or being in the control of others, this approach is about collaborating to get different neurons fired up and produce my desired action when the neurons I was trying to use weren't working.
Even if my "don't lose $12" neurons aren't working, this approach tricks my brain into thinking "oops, I lost $12, better not keep doing that" (which is a manageable amount of stress that's likely to produce action tomorrow or next week) rather than "oops, I potentially let someone die today, better not keep doing that" (which is not).
Besides helping me show up, this approach also puts the invisible professionals in the network on a level with visible professionals who can afford to pay me dollars.
It means my volunteer work doesn't endlessly slide to the bottom of my priority list after my paid work.
My volunteer commitment means I owe the network my time, because that's the choice I make to align with my sense of personal honour.
People who don't have the privilege to pay for assistance get promises broken to them all the time, because even if you genuinely want to do the right thing, you have years of brainwiring telling you to prioritise people who have monetary power over you, which means deprioritising people who don't.
A promise isn't only valid if you're getting paid for it.
While we're all working to change that brainwiring in the best possible ways, this little hack allows me to get around it while it's still there: I'm GIVING my colleagues in the network monetary power —- so my brain lets me treat them equally to people with more privilege.
I recommend this to anyone who's had trouble showing up and might be resonating with this kind of approach. It's worked brilliantly for me and allowed me to volunteer here consistently and almost daily now for over a year. I've continued to build shared knowledge while gaining unique skill sets and understanding about network situations, and I've been able to apply myself to helping out far more than I previously expected.
If you can't pay the actual value of your time then pay less.
If you have enough money that paying the actual value of your time feels too easy then pay more.
And remember, donations to https://paypal.me/IntuitiveInvisibles are tax deductible. You don't need a PayPal account. Check out https://Intuitive.community/support for more options.
Thanks for reading!
Evan Jacques
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“Accounting Accountability” was compiled by Evan Jacques with M. Morris, Intuitive Copy, & Intuitive Intensive (3 Jan 2022). Visit our community resources at https://t.me/IntuitiveCopy, https://t.me/IntuitiveIntensive, & https://t.me/IntuitivePublicRadio.
Reach out to Evan Jacques by commenting at https://t.me/SpaceDogSchool.
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