Watching Pots Boil

I enjoy watching pots boil, yet they never seem to boil when I watch them. I enjoy watching my garden produce vegetables, but it’s difficult to see the growth sitting on my back door stoop. I also enjoy watching Union MicroFinanza advance towards its goals and strive for its vision, but sitting on the couch making monthly balance sheets and income statements doesn’t really help me see our end result.

Eventually, if you put a lid over the top of a pot and have the electric burner going full blast the water will boil. Eventually, if you’ve prepared the soil well, mixed in some compost, nailed in some stakes, your plants will produce some delectable fruits. And eventually, if you lay the foundations right for an organization, throw in some qualified ambitious employees, follow a well crafted business plan, you may just be able to realize the fruits of your labor.

And so we arrive at our current position. The water is boiling, the cucumbers are delicious, and Union MicroFinanza is completing its first full year with a trajectory of continuing strong. As my current symbolism suggests, when the water is boiling, you still need to add the right ingredients to make a scrumptious dinner. Even though the plants are growing, you may need to trim them, thin them out, worry about pests, but if all things pan out the way they should, I will be eating my own tomatoes and cucumbers. And finally, though the organization may have been set up smoothly, there are sure to be a few kinks to work out and improve upon as time progresses.

With these thoughts I return to my analogy of watching pots boil. It’s difficult to see the evolution of Union MicroFinanza on a daily basis, but looking back over our first year as a non-profit start up, I feel the team here is pretty optimistic about the future. We have a great team, great goals, great plans, we’re ready to throw in our metaphorical ingredients, and it’s time to metaphorically fertilize our microfinance efforts. A new year has begun, further change is necessary, we need to analyze what went wrong, for it’s time to create a better product moving forward.

Like I already mentioned, it’s difficult to watch a pot boil, it’s difficult to watch fruits develop, and it’s difficult to realize the development of Union MicroFinanza…until you look back retrospectively with a little bit of hindsight and realize really how far we’ve come.

Daniel Schwartz