I just finished watching Amazing Grace, the movie about the life of William Wilberforce and his fight against slavery. The movie leaves me in a peculiar state--hopeful about the ability of one person to influence great change and yet discouraged about how hard the journey is. I feel bittersweet.

A snapshot of my life right now would reveal some interesting trends. On one hand I've experienced some amazing progress; the Freedom Project is well underway, it's grown from one member to six, my speaking invites are off the charts due in part to how much global networking and traveling I've done. But on the other hand I'm discouraged and have a nagging sense that I'm floundering.

The world is full of amazing people who are incredibly talented, well-spoken, sharp, and well educated. I meet them when I travel to international conferences and when I speak at forums on human trafficking. Next to them, I'm a dull uncut stone, roughly dug up from the ground and covered in dirt, chips and scratches. I don't have a shiny degree, I don't have all the smarts in the world and I'm not as witty as they are.

What I have, though, is heart. I have conviction. I know something and I want to take what I've learned to the normal people of the world. I can grab a person working in a diner and tell them I understand the daily grind, I understand that the issues of the world seem to big, I understand that the dying in Africa seems too far away. I understand apathy.

But I also understand that it doesn't have to stay that way. I understand the importance of a single person and that in the hands of normal joe's there is an incredible power to change the world.

I can't fit into the box of the highly educated; I can't look glossy and refined. I am an uncut stone. And that is what I'm meant to be. Any other pretenses stress me out and cause me to lose my way. I flounder when I can't remember who it is I am, who God has made me and what he has brought me from.

I worry that people I don't even know, know about me. I worry that they have built in their own minds and idea about how refined I am, how influential and put-together I must be. It's hard to disappoint people; it's hard not to try to be who they think I am.

And so I live in secrecy sometimes, trying to cover up and hide the true me, the disorganized me, the me who takes forever to return emails and phone calls, the me that clutters my desk with a million post-it-notes, the me that just wants to be real and can't stand all that NGO and government jargon. Instead I disguise my stories in facts and statistics, I say DOJ and HHS and UNODC not because I want to, but because somewhere someone tells me I should. I become less human and more machine, and like everyone else who works in this field, I lose the ability to connect to real people who live in the real world.

I lose my authenticity.

I flounder when I can't remember who it is I am and try to be who everyone thinks I should be. But I’ve learned a few lessons now. If I'm afraid I'll disappoint people then make sure they have the full story before they commit to interviewing, recording, writing an article, inviting you to sit on a panel or speak at a conference. If they're disappointed then that's their problem.

I am after all, an uncut stone.
And I'm happy to be who I am.