[2023-02-05] Be a helper
"Why be a victim when you can be a helper?"
That question leapt off the page as I was reading a recent article in Chatelaine magazine: Lisa LaFlamme Is Just Getting Started.
In this excellent piece, Elizabeth Renzetti describes what Lisa LaFlamme, former CTV National News anchor, has been doing since she was let go from the position she had held for 11 years: traveling to Africa to showcase reporters telling stories about gender-based violence, working with Journalists for Human Rights, covering the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II for Citytv.
Renzetti notes that aside from LaFlamme's video on Twitter announcing that she was no longer the anchor of CTV's nightly news program, the 35-year veteran of CTV News has said very little. Renzetti writes:
Otherwise, she has maintained a dignified silence, partly due to the terms of her departure and partly because she doesn’t want to speculate about the underlying causes that might have led to her firing. But mainly because she wants to move on. She has things to do, stories to tell. There are girls and women in Canada and around the world who need support. Why be a victim when you can be a helper?
She wants to move on. She has things to do, stories to tell. There are girls and women who need support. Why be a victim when you can be a helper?
That's a powerful perspective.
I admire LaFlamme's focus on what she could control rather than what she couldn't. She didn't lose her ability to tell stories when she was fired (though she may have lost the national platform from which to do it). Indeed, as Renzetti points out, "For the past several months, life has offered an unexpected gift: the luxury of time to think about the future."
I can relate to LaFlamme's story and determination. When cancer arrived on my doorstep on July 29, 2020, I too felt saddened and blindsided. I was the Assistant Deputy Minister of Communications for Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, leading health communications in the midst of a pandemic, the likes of which hadn't been seen for a century. Overnight, I went from a high-stress, high-responsibility position to cancer patient, a role that brought its own stress and responsibility.
Despite the shock, I never saw myself as a victim. I had no time for self-pity. I quickly realized that being a helper served me as much as it served others. I could cope with my illness by writing about it. I could assist others going through tough times themselves. I could share what I was learning on my cancer journey.
And the beauty of sharing my experience through a blog is that the stories never disappear; they remain accessible for people to read (or reread) when they encounter a situation that feels overwhelming. The posts build on each other, telling my story and sharing my unique perspective on life.
Interestingly, Renzetti quotes LaFlamme as saying, "Any journalist is uncomfortable becoming the story instead of reporting on it." When I studied Journalism at Carleton University between 1984 and 1988, I learned that the journalist was rarely part of the story, that they were—ideally—the impartial reporters of facts. I can see LaFlamme continuing in that vein: telling other people's stories.
I've gone a different route, choosing to share my story rather than to report on the experiences of other people. In this way, I'm like May Sarton, author of numerous books, including Journal of a Solitude, in which she writes:
"Not everyone can or will do that—give his specific fears and desires a chance to be of universal significance." To do this takes a curious combination of humility, excruciating honesty, and (there's the rub) a sense of destiny or of identity. One must believe that private dilemmas are, if deeply examined, universal, and so, if expressed, have a human value beyond the private, and one must also believe in the vehicle for expressing them, in the talent.
Whether we tell our own stories or whether we—like LaFlamme—tell the stories of others, we are serving a greater good. Stories reach people, connect people, move people. They help individuals see that they are not alone. They give them a new way of looking at the same old circumstances.
LaFlamme's message to be a helper, or Renzetti's read of her approach, is an inspiring way to respond when life throws a curveball. Though that idea is not applicable to everyone—there are people who truly are victims and have very little power—it is worth keeping in mind when the unexpected occurs.
